TEST
When we first meet our hero and heroine, there is a distinct power imbalance between them. Miss Helen Grey, the titular heroine, is a patient at Blackwell, an old manor home converted to an asylum for ‘insane’ women of the late 19th century in Yorkshire, England. William Carter, our hero, is her doctor. The Madness of Miss Grey is part historical treatise on the treatment of women whose lives fall on the outside of social mores and part arranged marriage romance. It is at its strongest when dealing with the former, but the latter is worth your time as well.
I’m getting ahead of myself.
To explain why Helen is at Blackwell is a fairly significant spoiler, and so forgive me for some subtle obfuscation here. Why it is claimed she is at Blackwell is nymphomania (seriously) and hysteria (of course) and she is under the direct care of Dr. Sterling, who is a renowned voice in the field. We learn quickly, however, that he shouldn’t be.
Dr. William Carter is the son of the housekeeper of the house from before it was a hospital – a fact that is held over his head on several occasions by other characters. The villains in this tale are Victorian moralizers of the breed that threaten fire and brimstone for any and all sins – from promiscuity to poverty. Our Will, however, has two things going for him: he is both a good man and a smart one.
He fairly soon susses out that there is actually nothing wrong with Helen beyond depressive tendencies due to being held captive against her will and suffering from a particularly abusive nurse. Once he gives her some opportunities to display her personality and take control of her own surroundings, he sees sparks of life which her file claims have been extinguished. The bulk of the story is the process of Will discovering the true depths of manipulation and abuse present at the ‘hospital’ and figuring out a way to get Helen out of it. Oh, and there is the bit where he falls in love with her. Obviously.
Helen was raised by a single mother who was employed as an actress – shorthand for a trollop raised by a trollop as far as the hospital admin is concerned – and learned long ago that life is simply a series of tiny plays. If she can control the script, she can control her life. When we meet Helen she has two failed escape attempts behind her and immediately eyes Will up as the source for her third. His kindness and drive to treat her with both basic human dignity and love undoes many of her defenses and she finds herself loving him as well.
Like I said at the beginning, the story is strongest during the places where it’s dealing with the realities of Helen’s life and the various diagnoses and treatments given to women who weren’t married Anglo-Saxon Protestants in England at this time. I’m confident that nearly every patriarchal country had its own version of this – that women who didn’t toe the culturally normative line were diagnosed as ‘hysterical’ and that any woman who claimed to enjoy sexual intercourse was to be feared as the downfall of civilization. (I may have some strong feelings about those opinions.)
Where I loved it a bit less was the romance. While Bennett dealt deftly with the power imbalance through the use of both vulnerable confessions and a focus on consent, the moments from ‘well, I can use him to plot my escape and then never see him again’ to ‘he is my one true love’ felt a little rushed and angsty for my particular tastes. However, it was honestly just a few shades too quick and does not put me off recommending this work to any historical romance fan.
Overall, The Madness of Miss Grey is a unique work in our current Romancelandia landscape and one I think should be given attention.
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Grade: B+
Book Type: Historical Romance
Sensuality: Warm
Review Date: 27/06/19
Publication Date: 04/2019
Recent Comments …
Yep
This sounds delightful! I’m grabbing it, thanks
excellent book: interesting, funny dialogs, deep understanding of each character, interesting secondary characters, and also sexy.
I don’t think anyone expects you to post UK prices – it’s just a shame that such a great sale…
I’m sorry about that. We don’t have any way to post British prices as an American based site.
I have several of her books on my TBR and after reading this am moving them up the pile.
Voracious reader, with a preference for sassy romances and happily ever afters. In a relationship with coffee, seeing whiskey on the side.
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Finally read this and OH MY GOD, I LOVED IT!!!
I realize that the power imbalance between doctor/patient isn’t going to work for a lot of people and I totally understand that and sexual/romantic relationships between therapists and their patients are 100% wrong in the real world, but yeah, none of that bothered me here.
The scheming anti-heroine/highly principled hero is always, always, always my catnip and this high-conflict, Gothic-tinged story is my new favorite historical romance.
Thank you for recommending this, AAR! I wouldn’t have picked this up if it weren’t for this review and the members of this community who suggested it to me. EVERYONE WAS RIGHT & I’m so grateful!
I’m so happy AAR promoted Julia Bennet as I doubt I ever would have found her as well. This was one of my top reads of 2020. I absolutely loved it. So happy other people are discovering her as well.
If you have Instagram Julia Bennet has a really interesting Instagram account.
Thank you. I SO hope she writes another book!
Yes, I follow her on Instagram and I agree, her account is a delight. This is definitely one of my favorites lately too!! Thank you for bringing it to my attention, chrisreader!! :)
I thought it was excellent!
100% Agree! I hope Julia Bennet continues writing. Can’t wait to see what she does next.
I would give this book an A grade, I thought it was wonderful. I had no problems with how the relationship is presented, as I said below, it’s clear without Helen being the initiator, there would have been no physical relationship. Will would have sacrificed himself on the altar of duty and the Hippocratic oath first. Helen is a very complex, pragmatic and modern heroine -but with her background it makes sense. As the illegitimate daughter of an actress who lived from patron to patron, she wouldn’t have been raised as the sheltered virgin lady. After realizing she was never to be freed from that asylum it makes perfect sense that she would try to make a deal with the devil, any devil to get free. Unlike Will, she’s not “romantic” and doesn’t idealize love or a physical relationship. I didn’t feel like her love for Will was rushed at all. It was a slow simmer with the heat being increased constantly until the reader realized before Helen did what her true feelings had become. I thought the author did a wonderful job of showing first her attraction, admiration, affection, friendship and finally her love for Will. By the time Helen admits that someone would have to “tear her” from Will’s arms for her to leave him it was clear to me (even if it wasn’t to them) that she had grown to love him.
Will is just a doll of a hero. Strong, intelligent, decent and the ideal of a what a doctor should be. I love that other men think of him as “ugly” and not a threat while completely missing the rugged sex appeal that initially draws Helen to him. He is intelligent enough to understand the “game” Helen is playing with her poses and sultry behavior and kind enough to see why she does it. I adored them as a couple and I would highly recommend this book.
I sense Helen would have no patience with the modern argument that somehow Will, simply because he is a doctor, is inherently the one with all the power in this relationship. Helen strikes me as a woman who makes her own rules. #mykindofwoman
Yes she’s a very strong character and in truth the doctors do, because of her situation, have most of the power in the relationships. It’s Will who really balances things by his code of conduct. Helen uses as much wiggle room as she can get, but it only gets her so far with Vaughn and others. As a prisoner, despite her strength of will, she’s at a huge disadvantage. Will levels the playing field, and on a level playing field Helen has the mental and emotional advantage because she’s not sentimental and she’s far more ruthless than Will. A Vaughn-Helen relationship is clearly and disgustingly imbalanced despite all Helen’s skills.
Excellent contrast: Will vs. Vaughn.
I see doctors differently than many, I suspect, having lived with a surgeon for decades. YMMV!
I’m sure you do. And it’s a very realistic viewpoint of them. You made a great point before about different situations. As you pointed out, someone getting into a relationship with their dermatologist isn’t something that sets off red flags. Every situation needs to be evaluated differently and all people are different. A 19th century woman locked in an asylum and her doctor is about as extreme as its going to get in terms of power imbalances!
I think you always mix in a healthy dose of common sense and real world experience in your comments, which is appreciated. I think in today’s climate a lot of times people want to assume the woman is automatically a victim in a situation if she doesn’t have all the power. I think in a good story, like in life, there are a lot of nuances and variables.
I do love historical romances that actually pay attention to history! This goes right on to my Must Read list.
Ooh, a worthy subject for a novel – I’ll be reading this soon!
I read an arc of this book and really enjoyed it for the reasons you state. The author has clearly done her research on asylums and medical responses to women — largely containment policies on growing female power. I was not as enamored with the romance for the reasons you cite and also because I felt that the power imbalance between patient/doctor never fully dissipated in the way I would have liked. Still, I am happy to have a new historical romance author to follow and am looking forward to the next book Bennet writes.
I’m interested to know how you think the power relationship between the two could have been resolved in a way that works for you. The doctor/patient rule actually makes a lot of sense to me–I’m married to a surgeon–in a way that many other power imbalance rules don’t.
I think a doctor/patient relationship is especially sensitive and so to answer your question about how to resolve it in a romance, I wouldn’t put two people in this situation together at all romantically. The patient is far too vulnerable always, and the doctor has power over her in any number of ways, especially in the situation Bennet created. I’m a teacher and feel the same with the teacher/student relationship, but there is something particularly troubling about a doctor/patient romance that just cannot be resolved for me. I still enjoyed this novel, but that particular dynamic doesn’t work for me.
I more or less agree with you. There are situations that, once the doctor/patient relationship is over–she was once your dermatologist and now you’re dating and you see another practitioner–that I can see working. There are student/teacher relationships I can buy–especially ones in which both parties are very adult (graduate level) AND the professional relationship is over (no grades, etc….)
I’ve finally read this book and found I didn’t struggle with the doctor/patient piece of it. I think there’s a clear demarcation between when Will stops being Helen’s doctor and becomes something else. Additionally, I think the author did a superb job of making it clear that Helen’s choices were very much her own–in some ways she had more or at least a very strong different power in the relationship than did Will.
I agree with this, I had zero problems with the power balance here. The author did a great job of setting Will up as a truly decent, honorable and vulnerable man. It’s very clear Helen has (in their relationship) a great deal of power. Particularly when it is contrasted with previous men and doctors she had dealt with. Will always does the honorable thing with every patient, not just Helen. Even if doing so is to his detriment. He cares about all of them, not just the woman he is attracted to. I thought he was the part that made their love story incredibly sweet as he was willing to be entirely sacrificial on Helen’s behalf.
MDs didn’t used to see the world through lawyer’s eyes–the whole point of the Hippocratic oath is that doctors are to use their training, ethics, and instincts to do what’s best for patients. Will passes that test admirably.
Yes he does with flying colors!
I felt that the power imbalance was resolved in a reasonable fashion for my modern eyes as well as historically-speaking. I liked this book a lot—it will probably go in my Best Book of the Year list.