Impossible Saints: A Novel
Ratings2
Average rating3.5
Escaping the constraints of life as a village schoolmistress, Lilia Brooke bursts into London and into Paul Harris's orderly life, shattering his belief that women are gentle creatures who need protection. Lilia wants to change women's lives by advocating for the vote, free unions, and contraception. Paul, an Anglican priest, has a big ambition of his own: to become the youngest dean of St. John's Cathedral. Lilia doesn't believe in God, but she's attracted to Paul's intellect, ethics, and dazzling smile. -- amazon.com
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Probably 4.5 stars, rounding down. I had never heard of this book, even though it's a pretty recent release, and I wonder if it's because it could be classified as general fiction instead of romance. (Definitely not saying general fiction is better than romance, just that they're marketed differently.) This is definitely a romance, though, and one I really enjoyed - content warnings here minor character death, force-feeding, police violence, physical abuse, characters in jail, so this is definitely a little more intense than a lot of things I like, but it never got overwhelmingly dark to me.
It's fairly angsty, but again, not dark, and the only real criticism I have is that the slow burn of it all got just a bit repetitive by the end, but overall, I thought this was a really well-told story of flawed people growing and finding their way to each other. It's probably not for you if religious characters are a problem (though I wouldn't call this “inspirational,” the male MC is a priest), but otherwise, I really recommend it.
(2020 summer romance bingo: suffragettes. Other options it would work for: “set on an island,” loosely, or debut novel.)
