A Kiss for Midwinter

A Kiss for Midwinter (2012) Courtney Milan (Brothers Sinister)

Set in England in 1863

I re-read the previous book in this series because I was wanting to re-read this story.

Dr Jonas Grantham wanted more than anything to become a doctor. Right before he left for medical school, he followed the town doctor around to learn, and for the promise of taking over his practice after he completed medical school.

But when on those rounds he doesn’t speak up when he feels the doctor is making a terrible mistake, he regrets his silence for years.

(H)e didn’t say anything. He didn’t speak because he was young. He didn’t speak because he doubted his memory of the pharmacopeia. And most thorny of all, Jonas kept his silence because Parwine had offered him his practice once he graduated.

Dr Grandtham is awesome.

Carrying a child was hard on a woman’s body, and eight children, delivered ten months after one another, left a woman no room to recover.
…
“The stuff that babes are made of comes from your own body, Mrs. Hall.” He straightened and put away his stethoscope. “If the babe needs the material of bones, it comes from you. If it needs the material of skin, it comes from you. There’s a reason you’re losing your teeth, Mrs. Hall.”

She looked away.

“You need to take a rest from bearing children. This babe likely won’t kill you. The next one might.”

Lydia is loved by her family. No matter what else, she knows this truth.

One of Lydia’s first memories was playing on the floor of her father’s study. Her nurse had darted in, grabbing her up with a flood of apologies and a scold for Lydia.

“Can’t you see your father’s busy?” she’d remonstrated.

But her father had simply shrugged. “If you take her away every time I’m busy,” he’d said placidly, “I’ll never see her. She can stay.”

But Lydia also believes that Dr Grandtham judges her for her past, for her mistakes, for her levity.

This is just such a wonderful story. Lydia is amazing, struggling and working so hard to be cheerful and kind, regardless of everything.

Lydia knew she had a few faults of her own, and one of the things she knew she was shockingly good at was telling lies to herself.

And Dr Grantham is wonderful–blunt and honest and a fan of science.

He’d been seduced by the stories— the stories of John Snow saving hundreds of lives by careful observation, of men who noticed the world around them and cared and thought, men who set aside irrationality in favor of cures supported by statistical research.

It’s a short novella, and it’s marvelous.
Rating: 8.5/10

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