Review: There's Something About Lady Mary by Sophie Barnes

There's something about Lady Mary and there is something about this book that I can't put my finger on. It started off with a lot of potential and then went downhill for me until I was forcing myself to read to the end so I could review it properly. Unfortunately, I just can't figure out exactly what went wrong. I liked the premise a lot. Lady Mary didn't know she was a lady. We find out at the beginning that her father had once been a Marquess and had walked off and left it to become a doctor which is certainly unusual for the time period.

 He was the best around and taught his daughter everything he knew. She was very good at her craft and research but she was also disobeying the law by practicing medicine as a female. This is all very interesting. Somewhere along the way though, Mary starts to get on my nerves. I think it is because she feels wishy washy and inconsistent to me. She is stubborn, forceful, intelligent, in-command woman to be reckoned with.

Then she becomes a tearful, indecisive, emotional woman who one minutes loves her guy, Ryan, but then is aggravated by him for being able to practice medicine even though he is inferior to her in the medical profession and social rank. She is worried about what people think of her riding a horse in breeches at a country estate but doesn't give a lot of thought to being in breeches at night when she is called to a patient's home. Given her background of a commoner, you'd think she would retain more of her common behavior and attitude but she feels like a "lady of quality" from the beginning of the book.

She is too trustworthy of people who waltz into her life although she had witnessed unspeakable casualties in the army with her father. She is also continously finding out that her father lied to her but yet she trusts most people around her without a lot of thought. The medical mystery part of the book was good even though it seemed to stretch on into a rather unbelievable ending. Also, I think a big part of the issue with this book was the language and the way it is written. The language is more like a BBC production and less casual conversation. Not necessarily flowery but grandiose like "Must you always mock me?" and "Don't do anything untoward."

The love scenes happened rather quickly and Mr. Summersby's behavior was kinda' all over the place too. It might be that I am not used to reading medical mysteries that take precedence over the building of the character and their love affair. I am sure that there are people who would enjoy this book very much - like my best friend who is a nurse. I think she'd enjoy it more than I did and I plan on recommending it to her.

Rating of There's Something About Lady Mary: 4 out of 10