THE LADY'S GUIDE TO CELESTIAL MECHANICS

The first in a series featuring romance between women.

Lucy Muchelney’s father was a celebrated astronomer. No one knows that she was responsible for much of the math behind his most significant work. Catherine Kenwick St. Day, Countess of Moth, traveled the world to look at the stars with her husband, but his death leaves her without a sense of purpose. When Catherine decides to fund the translation of a revolutionary new text by a French scientist, these two women become accomplices—and much, much more. The Regency novel was long one of romance’s most rulebound subgenres. Waite is one of a number of authors who are proving able to satisfy Regency’s demands while getting creative with some of its tropes, and the fact that this novel depicts two women falling in love and developing an unabashedly satisfying sexual relationship is among the least of its delightful surprises. Catherine, for example, is fully aware that the era in which she lives offers less freedom to women than the Enlightenment period just past, and she recognizes that many of the male scholars she knows are supported and assisted by their wives. There’s a moment when Catherine realizes that Lucy doesn’t have the right clothes for London, a moment in which a seasoned Regency fan might expect a shopping spree. Instead, Catherine realizes that buying gowns for Lucy might make Lucy feel obligated to return her affections. The first time Lucy kisses Catherine, she asks for—and receives—affirmative consent. The passion between these women is exciting, but their thoughtfulness and kindness are just as satisfying. There are, of course, some difficult moments in their relationship, but Waite has chosen for the most part to let her heroines face real vicissitudes together instead of manufacturing melodrama.

Utterly charming and subtly subversive.