Review: The Governess Affair

The Governess Affair by Courtney Milan
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

March 20, 2015

This is what I love about Milan's historical work: she's created characters who are subject to the specific mores of their time and place but who rebel. We get to see people fighting the strictures of their lives using the tools of their times. Here, a governess who has been let go without a reference seeks justice. The modern reader knows the vulnerable position women of the time were in, unable to resist anything from seduction to rape because they had no rights or protections. Most of them ended up in the crowded London sex trade, succumbing early to poverty and disease. It's enormously gratifying to read a story where the heroine isn't saved at the last minute and still manages to have a happy ending.

Personal copy

View all my reviews