The Girl in His Shadow – by Audrey Blake – independent book review- Historical Fiction (England)

THE GIRL IN HIS SHADOW is one of those historical novels that’s a pure delight to read. It’s a fresh story about medicine, women, power and institutional discrimination in England in the 1840s. And it’s the first novel in a series. Awarded four stars on Goodreads.

Eleanor Beady, known as Nora, is the only one in her family to survive a cholera epidemic. The doctor who cares for her and her family, Horace Croft, decides the only option is to take the eight year old into his home. Croft is a brilliant, dedicated and quirky practitioner and researcher, but socially inept.  Today he would likely be diagnosed as being on the autism spectrum. Fortunately, for Nora, Croft has a kind-hearted, live-in housekeeper.

The Croft home is full of specimens, both human and otherwise. When not in the clinic or hospital, Croft is constantly researching new surgical techniques, constructing models, performing experiments, or working inside illegally obtained cadavers. Nora, as his ward, has the unique and dubious experience of being raised in this environment and, under Croft’s supervision, becomes first his assistant, but soon quite a talented and knowledgeable surgeon in her own right.

There’s only one problem: she’s a woman. And in 1840s London, women are not legally permitted to be surgeons. They are considered far too delicate for such intimate knowledge of the human body. Nevertheless Nora is intelligent, loves her work and becomes so gifted she exceeds the skills of most male medical students of her time. When Croft brings a promising young doctor into his practice (and to live in their home), Dr. Daniel Gibson does not believe that Nora should know as much as she knows or do as much as she does.  Certainly Nora is nothing like the young doctor’s wealthy fiancé.

It’s an interesting time for medical advancement. The use of anesthesia to reduce suffering is in its infancy. Appendectomies, Caesarean sections, and other sorts of abdominal surgery are virtually unknown because of the serious risk of infection. Many treatments are still primitive, like using leeches to bleed patients. But Croft and Nora and even Dr. Gibson want to be at the forefront of new discoveries. So what they must continually fight is traditionally, minded, academic practitioners who don’t like change, public ignorance, and power concentrated in the hands of a very few egocentric physicians.

THE GIRL IN HIS SHADOW is a fast-paced story with rich characters that you will come to love and hate. And along the way you’ll learn a lot about the practice of medicine in the mid-19th century. Well worth the investment of time in this one.

An interesting note is that the author Audrey Blake doesn’t actually exist. Audrey Blake is a pseudonym for two women writers who met online but live 1500 miles apart. Authors Regina Sirois, who lives in Kansas, and Jaima Fixsen of Alberta, Canada partnered in creating the Nora Beady series. Fixsen is the author of the popular Fairchild regency romance series. Sirois has authored a number of young adult books.

You may be interested in my review of the sequel to this novel: THE SURGEON’S DAUGHTER.