The Gilded Hour
Sara Donati
752 pages
Random House
Published 2015
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This is a historical drama set in 1880s New York, by the author of the Into The Wilderness series, and featuring the descendants of characters from that series. I’ve had the sequel (Where the Light Enters) on my TBR for a few years and really didn’t want to read them out of order. I got to about book four in the Wilderness series years ago (six books in all) and enjoyed them, but was daunted by their length – which proved to be in issue here too.
Anna and Sophie Savard are cousins who have both battled the misogynistic medical system to qualify as doctors and establish careers treating the needy of New York. While coming from well-to-do backgrounds, only Anna is accepted by “polite” society because Sophie is of mixed-race. When Anna encounters a family of four motherless children who have been abandoned by their father, she seeks help from handsome detective sergeant Jack Mexanotte to help them. Meanwhile Jack is busy investigating a series of deaths of women following illegal medical procedures.
This 752 page whopper took over twenty hours to read on my kindle – much longer than it needed to be considering the plot wasn’t all that complex. There are various subplots – the evil machinations of Anthony Comstock, a real life character, who enacted laws prohibiting all forms of contraception and went out of his way to entrap doctors providing such advice, the romance between Anna and Jack, the search for Rosa and Lia’s missing brothers, and the (minor spoiler alert) serial killer targeting women having abortions. Too much time was spent on Anna and Sophie’s domestic situations and complicated family histories, which slowed the pace down, and while I liked all the medical details, I can see that they might also be too much for some readers. The author has clearly done a lot of research which gave the narrative an authentic feel, but perhaps crams too much in for one book.
The afterword explains which characters actually existed and the origins of the story in Donati’s own family history. My biggest disappointment was the ending – the story just stops, with no resolution to the mystery. Having the second book ready to start soon negates this issue for me, but this was first published in 2015, and the sequel in 2019 – that’s a long time to wait to find out who the killer is! According to the author’s website, the third part is due in 2024. There were also more typos and silly mistakes in the text than I would expect from a traditionally published bestselling author. Regardless, I plan to read the next book soon so I don’t forget too many details, and would recommend this to readers who enjoy immersive historical romance sagas.
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