Reflections

Set in 1930’s London, Cassia has always wanted to be a doctor but becoming pregnant by her medical school lover moves her onto the wife/motherhood path, and she tries to be gracious while her husband, a less worthy candidate for a medical practice, lives out a diminished version of her dreams. All that changes when she unexpectedly receives a windfall, a large inheritance from her entrancing but troubled godmother. Now Cassia can tentatively reenter the sophisticated society she left behind when she became a country doctor’s wife, and start to do some good by providing birth control and medical care for working class women who have already had too many babies. Her husband is not pleased, but author Penny Vincenzi is very good at arousing readers’ sympathy and understanding for even her most incorrigible or infuriating characters. The panoply of smart, talented, urbane characters that fill the book make excellent company and they each find their most suitable, though sometimes surprising, mate or destiny by the end. These characters wrestle with their choices as Edward VIII is facing a similar struggle, trying to balance love and duty while making a decision about marrying American divorcée Wallis Simpson.