The Winter Rose

The Winter Rose by Jennifer Donnelly

Doctor India Selwyn Jones has grown up rich and idealistic, yet now that she has graduated as one of the few women doctors in the 1900 she wants to do something with her life. She turns her back on her wealthy family and strikes out to help the poor. Her fiancé Freddie Lytton is out to become one of the top politicians in the House of Commons and is even more out to get gangster Sid Malone. Malone and India come into contact while she tries to serve the poor and she can’t help but fall for him.

I have to admit normally I am not all that intrigued by the 1900’s but this book definitely kept me interested. I actually couldn’t put it down. At one point I wanted to cry as India and Sid went around to the various poor and she found out what it really was like to live in the poor areas and try so hard to feed your children. This isn’t really what I would consider a classic romance. It is definitely more of an epic tale – covering many years and has more things in it then just the story of India and Malone. One thing I didn’t like was the last part of the book. Not wanting to ruin it for people – I thought that the setting of Africa was a little strange – it was like everything ended and then started up a long time later and yet everything continued.

Romance: Some – in terms of what you would think a classic romance novel was like in the olden days this would be it
Sex: Some, more of love then sex
Mystery: Not really, what happens as far as murder and violence the reader knows who did it even if the rest of the world didn’t.
Violence: Some but it isn’t gruesome
Overall: B+