Earlier this year, I read Olivia Waite’s Murder by Memory, a delightful sci-fi mystery novella. Having seen recommendations for her historical romance novel, The Lady’s Guide to Celestial Mechanics, I decided to read all three Feminine Pursuits books. The series can be read as standalone romances, though I enjoyed flying through them in order.
Each of them shares a central thesis: that women have always worked, and always had passions to pursue—including for each other. Each book’s characters experience the same broad limitations of living in a sexist and homophobic society, as well as their own distinct challenges owing to differences in social class and personal baggage. Yet each of them find ways to pursue art, science, business, and more, as well as to foster love and stability within their relationships, even without access to the traditional legal paths.
Though the stories are grounded in the Regency era, many of them feel relevant to our current world. While it’s disheartening (to put it mildly) to see modern headlines echoing societal problems from so long ago, I found it cathartic to read about people coming together to make things better for themselves and others. While they can’t fully change the structural problems working against them, they can take steps to improve their own corners of life using their hard work, ingenuity, teamwork, and whatever leverage they can manage—including sometimes privileges of their own or their allies. Though the books are realistic that this last point is often crucial, I do appreciate how the protagonists and side characters over the course of the series come from a range of backgrounds.
One of my favorite aspects of the series is the solidarity the characters build, not only with their love interests but also others in their communities, including queer side characters of all ages. I appreciate how the stories emphasize collective effort and support, rather than treating any one talented working woman as an exception or claiming a community can’t have more than one lone sapphic couple.
I also enjoyed how grounded the books are in details about the characters’ professions and interests, especially when it came to more obscure specialties like beekeeping. The writing flows well, with beautifully rendered imagery, and supports the characters’ wit and practicality along with their intense emotions. The romances themselves are endearing, full of mutual understanding, trust, and pointed banter. The characters are often healing together from some sort of trauma or grief, and family is a common element in the stories, sometimes as a source of that trauma or grief and sometimes as part of that healing.
With all of those commonalities established, the characters, plots, and pacing of each book vary quite a bit, so I’ll review each separately.
The Lady’s Guide to Celestial Mechanics
Book one, The Lady’s Guide to Celestial Mechanics, stars an astronomer and her sponsor, who is a talented embroiderer. Though Lucy Muchelney has done astronomy alongside her father for years, only he ever got credit. After his death, she seeks support for her own project, a translation of a guide to astronomy, but she’s dismissed due to her gender. Enter Catherine St Day, the Countess of Moth, who’s willing to support Lucy on the path to publication. Both characters have baggage from past romantic relationships—Lucy with a woman who left her to marry a man, and Catherine with her abusive dead husband—which provide barriers to their relationship. The fact that they can’t get legally married adds to their lack of security.
Of all the books, this one has the most average length and pace, with the characters getting together fairly easily and the rest of their story unfolding at a steady clip. This book also features the most typical third-act breakup. With how affectionately the characters’ relationship had been depicted up until that point, the drama and lack of communication in this beat felt a little forced. I did love the resolution of both the personal and professional conflicts, and the way those things intertwined.
I really appreciate how the characters’ specialties each provide a different lens on how misogyny has historically impacted women’s work. Obviously, there are many barriers to Lucy getting the recognition she deserves as an astronomer, considering the perception of science as a man’s domain. Though embroidery has historically been considered women’s work, it’s thus devalued; nothing bars Catherine from pursuing it, but she does not consider her creative, skillfully executed designs to be art, nor does she benefit financially from them.
As Catherine was already married to a man with whom she sailed around the world, she in many ways has more experience than Lucy. This is balanced by Lucy being the only one who has been with women. Catherine has never had a chance to consider her own attraction to women, which I did enjoy seeing in an adult character, though I wish her narration had allowed me to follow that journey a little better; I didn’t register that she didn’t already know she could be with a woman until she herself realized it. That being said, I appreciated how it was presented as a latent fact about her that she simply hadn’t had an opportunity to explore before.
Overall, this is a satisfying introduction to the series and has what I would imagine to be the broadest appeal, so I do recommend starting with it.
The Care and Feeding of Waspish Widows
Book two, The Care and Feeding of Waspish Widows, features a beekeeper and the owner of a print shop. Agatha Griffin has her hands full running her shop, all while grieving her beloved husband and trying to wrangle her politically radical son into taking over the family business. When bees build a hive in her warehouse, she must call upon Penelope Flood, whose eccentric charms she is unprepared for. Penelope and her husband in name only have a pragmatic arrangement, leaving her free to have her own dalliances, though she never commits to being truly loved—but in the face of Agatha’s dedication, that may change. Meanwhile, the return of an exiled queen shakes up politics both in the city where Agatha lives and the countryside where Penelope resides, and they both must decide whether to protect what they love by caving to censorship, or whether it’s worth standing up for their beliefs.
This is the longest book in the series, and in my opinion, that fact is well-earned. The romance is deliciously slow, with two apparent opposites meeting and developing a tender friendship that blooms in adversity. Over the course of letters and months and numerous shake-ups to the status quo, Penelope and Agatha come to lean on each other, and they draw from that strength as those in power around them try to threaten them into conforming.
This book is ultimately about how the safe route comes with its own consequences, and the riskier route can come with ample rewards. At the same time, it has compassion for people who do what they feel they need to do to keep themselves and others safe in the face of a society that won’t hesitate to turn on them. It was hard not to think of our present times while watching their opponents make use of institutions to attack those they dislike under the guise of “wholesome family values.” The book also takes several interesting angles on marriage as an institution, especially in a time where women had limited access to divorce.
I had immense tenderness for the main characters. It was healing to watch two middle aged women, one of whom is a mother, try things they never thought they would thanks to the growing love between them. Penelope, who has cultivated over forty years of people pleasing instincts, is finally learning how to use her own voice. Though Agatha was already in a loving marriage, that doesn’t mean this new love can’t still teach her things. I love how their adoration for each other feeds into this book’s body positivity, as they can’t help but accept their own aging in the face of their attraction to their beloved. On top of that, this book had my favorite ensemble cast, with the community and family dynamics feeling just as real as the romance.
If I have any complaint about this book, it’s the marketing; I don’t think the cover and synopsis do the characters and their conflicts justice. I suppose I could extend that critique and say the book’s setup is a little slow, and is thus a little slow to clarify some basic points that I’m not sure needed to be drawn out. But mostly, this book is very dear to me, and I just want to find a way to properly wave it in front of everyone’s face without getting into spoilers. I’ll just say that it weaves together its romance, its ensemble dynamics, its politics, and the characters’ vocations in a satisfying way.
Speaking of weaving…
The Hellion’s Waltz
Book three, The Hellion’s Waltz, stars a weaver and a musician. Sophie Roseingrave, whose family sells instruments, had her budding career as a piano teacher cut short when a swindler ruined her family business. Starting over in a new town, the last thing she wants is to get involved in another swindle… until she meets Maddie Crewe, who has hatched a scheme to ruin a merchant on behalf of a group of weaver girls. Though Sophie is determined to stop Maddie, she instead gets involved in a passionate whirlwind romance.
This is the shortest book in the series and has the fastest pace. It features two young women who each have had to put aside their own passions and ambitions, whether due to past trauma or for the sake of trying to keep others together, who both give each other a chance to finally claim their own happiness. Like with all the books, I was charmed by the main couple’s chemistry. Both characters have supportive families, in one case blood-related and in one case found, and I loved seeing all of those dynamics. I also appreciated the focus on labor rights and how this book featured more working class characters than the others.
While I understand why this was the shortest book given its high-intensity heist plot, I do wish it had been longer; it has a lot of moving parts that could have used a bit more room to breathe. I also wish there had been a bit more space to develop the romance. Though I believe in them as a couple in general, at the point that they were fully devoted to each other, I wasn’t quite there with them yet. I’m a little torn on whether I’d prefer if the dynamic had been kept as sweet as it is and simply given more space to develop in the middle, or if I’d prefer if the end allowed for more of the messiness and grey morality that I was expecting from this book’s concept. Or maybe I just have no qualms about the idea of fleecing exploitative merchants.
Regardless, this book was a fun ending to the series, with just enough thematic similarity to the others while providing a distinct spin.
Ultimately, I enjoyed all three books and could easily see each of them being someone’s favorite. It’s likely obvious that I favor The Care and Feeding of Waspish Widows, as I was most invested in its characters, story, and pacing. Even if not all of the books are of interest to you, I still recommend the books individually, but I’m personally very glad I read the full set.
Content warnings: historical misogyny, homophobia, racism, and classism, as well as grief, past abuse, exploitation, and adultery
