The Rose of Sebastopol
Katharine McMahon
Berkley, Feb 2010, $15.00
ISBN: 9780425232224
During the Crimean War, surgeon Henry Thewell and nurse Rosa Longwood are serving in the combat zone. His fiancé and her cousin Mariella Lingwood remains in England worried about both of them especially with the letters from them in Turkey.
When Henry becomes severely ill, he is rushed back to Italy for proper medical treatment. Upon learning of her fiancé’s illness, Mariella rushes to be with him. However, she is greeted with the name of Rosa on his lips while he is delirious. Hearing that Rosa is missing; out of character for a prim and proper Victorian lady; Mariella heads to the front to find Rosa to learn the truth re the relationship between her cousin and her fiancé.
Putting aside the abrupt forced climax, The Rose of Sebastopol is a terrific unusual Victorian romance with a strong look at conditions on the front during the mid nineteenth century Crimean War with Tennyson’s Charge of the Light Brigade coming to mind. The jump back and forth in time needs some adjustment but worth the effort as the cast brings to life the era from the perspective of the war. Rosa appears to be a Florence Nightingale clone of sorts while Mariella is changed by what she observes first in Constantinople and later at the front as she realizes that Love is a Battlefield (Benatar).
Harriet Klausner
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