This is another one of those books, reserved at my library when I was on a search for lesbian fiction. I was very pleased that my library had Wildthorn – I don’t read much historical romance-y lesbian fiction, which is too bad. I should see if I can scare up some more!
Louisa is her father’s daughter – she’d like to be a boy, because boys have toy trains and get to play marbles and they go to school and learn real things as opposed to the things girls go to school to learn. Her father, a doctor, indulges her and keeps her home, hires a tutor and even takes her on rounds with him after she’s old enough to handle such things. Louisa wants nothing more than to be a doctor. She’s also in love with her cousin – Grace.
Which is all well and good until her father dies, leaving her brother head of the household. And her brother has issues. Issues with Louisa – a young woman who “apes men” – and personal issues that drive him to… well I won’t spoil it for you.
Before she knows it, Louisa is in an asylum and the staff is calling her Lucy. There are some nice twists at the end and an ending that I didn’t love because it was a little big predictable and too close to happily ever after for my tastes. Even though it wasn’t happily ever after in the same way it would have been if Louisa wasn’t a lesbian.