This book is the sequel to "The Girl in His Shadow" and whilst it can be read alone there are some references to its precursor. I wasn't as enamoured with this historical novel primarily set in a medical school in Italy; this one I found to drag on quite a bit and didn't find the story as interesting. 3.25/5 ( )

I liked the first book better. This one had more romantic pining - probably unavoidable with the forced long-distance relationship, but it would have been more interesting with more focus on the studies and challenges Nora faced, the other doctors and nurses she was learning from, and the discoveries she wanted the chance to make - and less reliance on the "Oh, I can't burden the person I love with anything I'm struggling with" cliche. ( )

I thoroughly enjoyed the historical nature of this book and loved the two very strong female characters, Nora and Dr. Marenco. The story is set in 1847 when Nora is struggling to study medicine in England, which was prohibited for women in those times. She leaves her mentor, boyfriend, and home in England to travel to Bologna, Italy where she’s been accepted at a prestigious medical school. Her plan is to get her medical license and then return to England and join her mentor’s medical practice. Upon her arrival in Italy, while her presence in the medical school is accepted, she is shunned and treated with open hostility.

She finds an advocate in one male professor and learns much from him but later finds his interest in her is more than academic. While initially dismissed as incompetent by the only female doctor (Marenco), Nora later develops a close relationship with her and is captivated by Dr. Marenco’s groundbreaking steps in performing Cesarean sections. And since Nora has her own expertise in using ether, she shares that knowledge with Dr. Marenco.

The medical procedure details and historical background were especially captivating and I love that much of the background (medical cases in particular) were based on real events.

I was not aware this was a sequel (although The Surgeon’s Daughter certainly stands alone) and wish I had read The Girl in His Shadow first.
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The Surgeon's Daughter is the historical fiction tale of Nora Beady who is the only female student at a medical school in Bologna, Italy. This is the 19th century and women were supposed to stay at home in the kitchen and have babies.

Because of these stuffy ideas by men, Nora has a difficult time, not learning to be a doctor but overcoming the male attitude. She is ridiculed wherever she goes in school. She wants to become a licensed physician so she can practice with her boyfriend in England. She was not allowed to attend medical school there.

She wants to graduate sooner than planned and is told that she needs to study under Magdalena Morenco the only female doctor on staff. With Magdalena's help, she learns about performing the c-section on women who are having a hard time delivering the normal way. Nora is also an expert on the use of ether.

This book focuses on the lengths that Nora will go to to be acknowledged as the fine doctor that she aspires to be.

We also learn of Nora's boyfriend, Daniel who is also a doctor and is having difficulties with the head of the hospital on how to treat diphtheria children. This story explores the times with the pressures on women to do what is expected of them.

I love a good story about strong women and this one is definitely that. How a young woman rises to the top of her class of skeptical men. I really enjoyed it.

I give it 4 stars. ( )

The sequel to The Girl in His Shadow, The Surgeon’s Daughter by Audrey Blake (a nom de plume used by the writing team of Regina Sirius and Jaima Fixsen) follows Eleanora Beady’s move to Italy to study medicine at the University of Bologna, having been refused the opportunity in England.

As the only woman in the class, Nora has few allies among her classmates and professors, but is determined to prove herself in an accelerated program and return to England with her medical license so that she can practice alongside her guardian, Dr Horace Croft, and her paramour, Dr Daniel Gibson. Nora is excited when she finds a mentor in Dr. Magdalena Morenco, whose study of caesarean birth procedures dovetails neatly with Nora’s interest in anaesthesia, though her goal is nearly thwarted by a jealous professor.

Though Nora ultimately returns to London triumphant, she discovers Croft and Gibson are under pressure due to the actions of a vindictive colleague, ill-health, and financial stress. With the viability of their Great Queen Street clinic in question, when Nora is asked by a heavily pregnant Lady Woodbine to perform a caesarean, she is all too aware that failure to save both mother and baby could end not only her own fledgling career, and the careers of those she loves, but also the future of women in medicine.

The Surgeon’s Daughter is a reminder of how primitive surgical treatment was in the mid 19th century, with the survival of patients often due more to good luck than good management. Drawing on medical case studies from the era, Blake offers vivid descriptions of injuries and illnesses, and the often barbaric processes used to treat them. It was difficult to read about children suffocating from Diphtheria, and as someone who gave birth via an emergency caesarean section, the thought of enduring the surgery, and recovery, without anaesthetic and pain management is horrifying, and the only alternatives then available to save mother or child (rarely both), no less so.

Naturally, Blake explores the barriers women faced in pursuit of higher learning in a period when their role in society was very narrowly defined by marriage, and motherhood. Only a handful of European institutions would accept women who wanted to study medicine, and even then they were rarely welcome. Nora’s experience of exclusion, sexism and misogyny was common (and barely improved for a century), and England’s first female doctors all gained their licence to practice from overseas institutions, as they were refused entry in England.

I wanted to understand more about Nora’s student experience though, other than just being a target of misogyny, and perhaps see some character change, or growth. I thought the pace of Nora’s narrative was uneven, and some crucial elements, particularly the period where she was under the tutelage of Moreno, felt underdeveloped. Though I was engaged by the action and tension in Croft and Gibson’s chapters, I also felt that it pulled too much focus from Nora’s story.

As a well researched piece of historical fiction, I found The Surgeon’s Daughter to be interesting and enjoyable. ( )