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!

The post Dana Schwartz’s Immortality: A Love Story ARC Review appeared first on ClaryNathanWill.

I have been a huge fan of Dana Schwartz’s podcast Noble Blood for a while now. So I jumped at the chance to scoop this title up the minute I saw it on NetGalley.

“A gothic tale full of mystery and romance about a willful female surgeon, a resurrection man who sells bodies for a living, and the buried secrets they must uncover together.

Edinburgh, 1817.

Hazel Sinnett is a lady who wants to be a surgeon more than she wants to marry.

Jack Currer is a resurrection man who’s just trying to survive in a city where it’s too easy to die.

When the two of them have a chance encounter outside the Edinburgh Anatomist’s Society, Hazel thinks nothing of it at first. But after she gets kicked out of renowned surgeon Dr. Beecham’s lectures for being the wrong gender, she realizes that her new acquaintance might be more helpful than she first thought. Because Hazel has made a deal with Dr. Beecham: if she can pass the medical examination on her own, the university will allow her to enroll. Without official lessons, though, Hazel will need more than just her books – she’ll need bodies to study, corpses to dissect.

Lucky that she’s made the acquaintance of someone who digs them up for a living, then.

But Jack has his own problems: strange men have been seen skulking around cemeteries, his friends are disappearing off the streets. Hazel and Jack work together to uncover the secrets buried not just in unmarked graves, but in the very heart of Edinburgh society.”

Check out my more detailed thoughts below…

• Characters: Our protagonist is Hazel Sinnett is excentric, resourceful and independent. She rejects most aspects of the rich high society she is growing up in. Much to the chagrin of her mother, her emotionally distant mother. That compliments Hazel’s physically distant father. Hazel wants to be a surgeon and I loved the drive she had towards making her dream a reality. There are two men in Hazel’s life, Bernard and Jack. Bernard is a childhood friend, who she has been set up to marry basically since birth. Hazel herself describes him as “nice enough.” Jack is a lot more of an exciting character, he is a resurrection man, exhuming the bodies of criminals and selling them to medical students for money. I liked him but I didn’t love him. It felt unrealistic who quickly he would flip flop on who he had romantic feelings towards. I also feel like we did not know him as well as we knew Hazel.
• Setting: The story’s setting is nineteenth-century Scotland, Edinburgh specifically. The setting is very Bridgerton-esque. Staples of the time are in play such as going down to London for the season. With this setting it brings the limited amount of medical knowledge we did know. Much as I expected Dana Schwartz’s work is well researched. There are passages on the medicine of the time and they are really interesting. The medicinal and setting elements were the strongest aspect of this book.
• Pacing: This YA novel is alright when it comes to pacing. The short and quippy chapters are helpful. The vocabulary and writing are sharp. The language is vivid. The issue with the pacing for me was that it took me a long time to get into the story. Once I was in, I had to put a bit of effort in to keep reading the story. Some things in the book felt rushed while other things dragged.
• Romance: I did not buy into the romance in this story. Hazel and Jack had a very insta-love style to their relationship. Jack loved one girl one day and was head over heels with Hazel the next. Hazel kept stringing her betrothed Bernard along. I get why she did, but I was not much of a fan of it. A love story is in the title, so I just wished the romance elements of this book were stronger. I did like their first kiss a lot, I will not spoil it for you but it was a unique setting that made for a unique scene.

Anatomy: A Love Story receives three out of five stars.

Thank you again to Dana Schwartz, Wednesday Book and NetGalley for the review opportunity. Thank you for reading and supporting my blog!

The post Dana Schwartz’s Anatomy: A Love Story ARC Review appeared first on ClaryNathanWill.