Title: The Lady's Guide to Celestial Mechanics Series: Feminine Pursuits #1
Author: Olivia Waite
Published: June 25, 2019
Genre(s): Romance: Historical
Page Count: 336
Rating:
Summary from Goodreads:As Lucy Muchelney watches her ex-lover’s sham of a wedding, she wishes herself anywhere else. It isn’t until she finds a letter from the Countess of Moth, looking for someone to translate a groundbreaking French astronomy text, that she knows where to go. Showing up at the Countess’ London home, she hoped to find a challenge, not a woman who takes her breath away.
Catherine St Day looks forward to a quiet widowhood once her late husband’s scientific legacy is fulfilled. She expected to hand off the translation and wash her hands of the project—instead, she is intrigued by the young woman who turns up at her door, begging to be allowed to do the work, and she agrees to let Lucy stay. But as Catherine finds herself longing for Lucy, everything she believes about herself and her life is tested.
While Lucy spends her days interpreting the complicated French text, she spends her nights falling in love with the alluring Catherine. But sabotage and old wounds threaten to sever the threads that bind them. Can Lucy and Catherine find the strength to stay together or are they doomed to be star-crossed lovers?
The Lady’s Guide to Celestial Mechanics is an utterly perfect romance from the word Go. That’s…that’s really all I can say.
Okay, fine. I can say more.
But I really do mean that this book is excellently crafted—it’s perfect. It hits every single note it’s supposed to, the characters are fully realized, complex humans, the plot is paced well, the love story sings, and the obstacles the protagonists face are large but not insurmountable. Olivia Waite’s prose is lyrical, and her insight into human nature is 100% on point.
Like I said: perfection.
The book is, obviously, set in Ye Olden Times, when two ladies in love was (usually) a taboo. This book addresses that, but it isn’t central. This is not a “coming out” book or a book about how hard it is to be a lesbian during the Regency. Waite immerses her story in an excellently researched historical context without catering at all to the too-common notions that straight people have about 19th century LGBT folk: i.e., that they were all miserable.
Catherine and Lucy are not miserable. At the outset of the book, they are not terribly happy women, but there is no pressing, looming presence of homophobia that stalks the pages of The Lady’s Guide to Celestial Mechanics. In fact, as Catherine learns over the course of the text: there are plenty of people, hiding in plain sight, who do not fit the mold. That’s another thing to love about this book—the main couple is not an island. They are surrounded by friends and family, many of them queer themselves, who want what is best for them. They might bungle things (as in the case of Lucy’s kind of terrible brother, Stephen), but they do have good intentions.
In addition, Catherine and Lucy are some of the most purely honest portrayals of human beings I’ve ever read. I mean that truly. The thread of internal tension suffusing their relationship—the thing that leads to the Dark Moment—is simply this: neither trusts the other to stay. They both, through no lack of attempted communication, are insecure in the permanence of the other’s love. And because they expect to be left at any moment, they both try to do the leaving. They hurt each other in the process, and it’s a mess, but it all gets sorted out.
I would also like to add that Lucy’s dialogue on her former lover provided some of the most spot-on commentary about childhood loves you cling to for too long. Olivia Waite completely nails what it’s like to love someone as a teenager and to wish things would never change, only to realize years later that of course that love would never last, because there had been no room for growth. I was vaguely shook by how insightful the book got there for a second.
And, obviously: this book is about science! It’s about ambition and trying to make one’s place in a world that does not respect you, simply because of your gender. It’s about “women’s work” being dismissed outright, even though it has worth. It’s about pushing through bigotry and succeeding when you didn’t think it was possible. This book is about taking space at the table.
The Lady’s Guide to Celestial Mechanics is about smashing the fucking patriarchy with telescopes and embroidery needles and also about two ladies making the decision to stay.
I love this book. It’s brilliant, it’s perfect. It made me so unbelievably happy. Please read it.
