Thank you to Dana Schwartz, Wednesday Books, and NetGalley for the advance reader copy of Immortality: A Love Story, the sequel to Anatomy: A Love Story.
Hazel Sinnett is back! I was so intrigued to see where Dana would take this sequel, I could not help myself and I had to sign up to review. I was pleasantly surprised with this sequel. It was a great follow-up filled with historical easter eggs and satisfying twists.
Hazel Sinnett is alone and half-convinced the events of the year before—the immortality, Beecham’s vial—were a figment of her imagination. She doesn’t even know whether Jack is alive or dead. All she can really do now is treat patients and maintain Hawthornden Castle as it starts to decay around her.
When saving a life leads to her arrest, Hazel seems doomed to rot in prison until a message intervenes: She has been specifically requested to be the personal physician of Princess Charlotte, the sickly daughter of King George IV. Soon Hazel is dragged into the glamor and romance of a court where everyone has something to hide, especially the enigmatic, brilliant members of a social club known as the Companions to the Death.
As Hazel’s work entangles her more and more with the British court, she realizes that her own future as a surgeon isn’t the only thing at stake. Malicious forces are at work in the monarchy, and Hazel may be the only one capable of setting things right.
Immortality: A Love Story is the eagerly anticipated sequel to Dana Schwartz’s bestselling gothic romance, Anatomy: A Love Story.
Check out my more detailed thoughts below…
- Characters: We are back with Hazel and she is still more confident with a scalpel in hand than about the state of her life. After Jack’s disappearance, we return to her attempting to keep it all together. The Jack-shaped hole in her heart is apparent and does give Immortality’s Hazel a more mournful tone and demeanour. I did not see it as her spunk or spark from Anatomy having disappeared, instead, she has had to do some growing up and we are getting quite a natural character progression for someone trying to move on with her life after losing her first love.
- Setting: This sequel gives us a change in setting as we are whisked away from Edinburgh to London. Not just to London but to a royal palace to help an ailing Princess Charlotte. The year is 1818. It was these historical easter eggs that really made the book shine. My biases come through here as for one I myself have a history degree, but also I am just a huge fan of Dana Schwartz’s history podcast Noble Blood. Fans of that podcast will love this book and if you are not already a listener of the podcast I highly recommend it.
- Pacing: I was having some issues with the plot and pacing, especially in earlier parts of the story. Something as simple as it takes us four or five chapters to see Hazel arrested and to really kick off the impetus for the sequel. I personally would have tightened up those first few chapters, maybe into just one or two to keep the pacing going. I read another review that said this may have been better served by a novella which I don’t agree with as so many of the wider plot and world-building elements needed some room.
- Romance: I do not want to go into much detail on the romance elements of the story as I do not want to spoil you. Obviously, this story opens with our protagonist heartbroken over the potential loss of her love. Of course, those who have read the first book, which is a must-do before this one will know the state of his life and death was left hanging in the balance. I wished some of the answers came a bit earlier, but that probably stems from some of the issues I had with the pacing. This book is less of a love story than Anatomy. A better subtitle to me maybe would have alluded to the mystery elements which were fascinating and probably one of my favourite parts of the book.
Immortality: A Love Story receives four out of five stars.
You can pick up the story here.
Thank you again to Dana, Wednesday Books, and NetGalley for the review opportunity. Thank you for reading and supporting my blog!
