The Lady's Guide to Celestial Mechanics

May 24, 2019

The day Lucy Muchelney's lover marries another is the day she realizes her life as she knew it is over. Her lover marries a man to collect an inheritance, her brother plans to sell her telescope to fund his artistic endeavors, and with her father dead, her ties to the scientific community are crumbling away. Then she receives a letter addressed to her father from the widowed Catherine St. Day, the Countess of Moth, asking his recommendation for an interpreter to translate a revolutionary work of astronomy, and she seizes her chance. When Lucy shows up at Catherine's home, the Countess isn't sure what to make of her. Her claim to have done most of her father's mathematical equations is absurd, isn't it? The scientific society won't accept a woman as a translator, let alone as a mathematician or a member. But as Catherine realizes Lucy is the read deal, she also discovers Lucy may just be the greatest adventure she's ever undertaken...if society doesn't find out. VERDICT Waite (A Thief in the Nude) delivers a sweet lesbian romance with a hint of spice, fitting into the decorum of the era. Recommended for libraries where LGBT historical romance is popular.--Melanie C. Duncan, Washington Memorial Lib., Macon, GA

Copyright 2019 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

June 15, 2019
The first in a series featuring romance between women. Lucy Muchelney's father was a celebrated astronomer. No one knows that she was responsible for much of the math behind his most significant work. Catherine Kenwick St. Day, Countess of Moth, traveled the world to look at the stars with her husband, but his death leaves her without a sense of purpose. When Catherine decides to fund the translation of a revolutionary new text by a French scientist, these two women become accomplices--and much, much more. The Regency novel was long one of romance's most rulebound subgenres. Waite is one of a number of authors who are proving able to satisfy Regency's demands while getting creative with some of its tropes, and the fact that this novel depicts two women falling in love and developing an unabashedly satisfying sexual relationship is among the least of its delightful surprises. Catherine, for example, is fully aware that the era in which she lives offers less freedom to women than the Enlightenment period just past, and she recognizes that many of the male scholars she knows are supported and assisted by their wives. There's a moment when Catherine realizes that Lucy doesn't have the right clothes for London, a moment in which a seasoned Regency fan might expect a shopping spree. Instead, Catherine realizes that buying gowns for Lucy might make Lucy feel obligated to return her affections. The first time Lucy kisses Catherine, she asks for--and receives--affirmative consent. The passion between these women is exciting, but their thoughtfulness and kindness are just as satisfying. There are, of course, some difficult moments in their relationship, but Waite has chosen for the most part to let her heroines face real vicissitudes together instead of manufacturing melodrama. Utterly charming and subtly subversive.

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Starred review from July 1, 2019
Lucy Muchelney desperately wants to believe that her brother Stephen is wrong. Somewhere out in the world, there has to be someone willing to employ a female astronomer. After all, it isn't as if Lucy doesn't have the necessary scientific skill set. Fortunately, just before Lucy is about to give up all hope, she gets the chance to prove her scientific mettle when the opportunity to translate a French treatise on celestial mathematics presents itself. The translation is being sponsored by Catherine St. Day, Countess of Moth, who upon meeting Lucy discovers she has much more than a love of science in common with her new prot�g�e. This superbly written debut by Waite, the first in her new Feminine Pursuits series, is simply stellar in every way. From the delicately blossoming romantic relationship between Lucy and Catherine, which the author gracefully imbues with a surfeit of electric sexual chemistry and potent sensual yearning, to the marvelous manner in which Waite pays homage to the valuable yet often unsung contributions women like Lucy have made in the sciences, everything in this resplendent romance is done to perfection.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)