The Dare and the Doctor

November 7, 2016
In Noble’s insipid third Winner Takes All Regency romance (after The Lie and the Lady), Rhys Gray and Margaret Babcock start out as correspondents discussing academic topics and become friends bonding over common intellectual interests. When Margaret accepts an invitation from Rhys to visit London, love is inevitable, but the bland courtship is riddled with clichés. Margaret, smart but awkward in polite society, and Rhys, saddled with an inconvenient engagement arranged by his mother, embody familiar romance fare. The letters are entertaining and show how well the hero and heroine get along, but once they stop writing, their interactions are wooden and unimaginative. The obstacles keeping Rhys and Margaret apart are so contrived and flimsy that it’s a relief when Rhys finally stops pouting and ends the plodding drama. The supporting cast—their friends and family—show some potential, but they are not fully developed and primarily act as cardboard props on the sidelines. Noble clearly did considerable research into botany and medicine; that time could have been better spent on plot, pacing, and character development. There’s promise, but this romance fails to deliver. Agent: Annelise Roby, Jane Rotrosen.

Starred review from November 15, 2016
An amateur horticulturalist from Lincolnshire travels to London to show off her hybrid roses--and to visit a handsome doctor who has been writing her letters.Margaret Babcock is too tall, too timid, and too uncouth to be comfortable in polite society. She much prefers to spend her time mixing fertilizers in her greenhouse. But when Dr. Rhys Gray, her father's physician, arranges for her to present her work to gentlemen from the Horticultural Society of London, Margaret decides to take his dare. She is positive that her youthful crush on Rhys is completely gone and that now they are nothing more than academic correspondents and good friends. But in London, Rhys is the only person who makes her feel completely comfortable being herself. Margaret is shocked to discover that Rhys is all but engaged to Sylvia Morton. His family hopes the marriage will wipe away the bad blood between the two families and allow his exiled father and brother to return from the Continent. But while Sylvia is pretty and agreeable, Rhys realizes he's most content when he's with Margaret. Although Rhys finds his family foolish and frustrating, he's essentially passive, allowing his mother and his strong-tempered siblings to interfere in his life. Margaret, too, tends to be passive, letting Sylvia drag her to parties when she'd rather be at home, forcing manure through a strainer to feed her roses. In the third installment of her Winner Takes All series, Noble (The Lie and the Lady, 2015, etc.) has written a thrilling and absorbing tale about two people who find so much safety in each other that they're able to take the biggest risk of their lives. Not to be missed.

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