June 5, 2020
Eleanor "Nell" St. George spent the Great War in France, working for the Army Veterinary Corps under temperamental Capt. Llewellyn Hughes. Her final task before returning home is to deliver the captain's horse, Tommy, to him in Wales. She arrives to find her former commanding officer drinking heavily, lashing out erratically at his wife and children, while eldest daughter Beatrice runs the impoverished household and keeps her father's temper in check. Nell is drawn to Beatrice's strength and beauty, while Beatrice, in turn, longs for the freedom to act on her attraction to Nell. When Beatrice's mother dies mysteriously and Beatrice sees a chance of escaping her father's control, Nell provides a solution--but can the couple navigate class differences to arrive at a mutually desired future? VERDICT Dahlia (Ode to the Banh Mi) presents a charming love story, though readers may struggle to understand what draws Nell and Beatrice together aside from Beatrice's need to flee her abusive situation. That Nell's privilege ultimately secures that escape complicates the path to a truly consensual happily ever after.--Anna J. Clutterbuck-Cook, Massachusetts Historical Soc., Boston
Copyright 2020 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
May 25, 2020
Dahlia (Racetrack Royalty) finds moments of sweetness amid emotional upheaval in this tumultuous WWI lesbian romance. Lady Eleanor “Nell” St. George used her connections to join the war effort as a veterinarian at the front. When her injured captain tasks her with escorting his horse from France to his home in Wales, she readily agrees. There she meets the captain’s beautiful, beleaguered daughter, Beatrice Hughes. With her father away and her mother ill, responsibility for raising the four younger Hughes children fell to Beatrice. Now her tyrannical father is back and Beatrice is essentially a servant in her own home. Though she’s as drawn to Nell as Nell is to her, she can’t imagine a future where they could be together. When Beatrice’s mother dies under mysterious circumstances and the captain drinks himself into the hospital, both women’s lives are thrown into chaos as they try to make sense of what happened. Dahlia takes great care with her heroines’ emotions as they navigate grief, PTSD, and desire, but their subtle changes of heart become murky as the back-and-forth between them drags on. The class disparity between them leads to weighty arguments about privilege and power that ring true, but which make their rushed happy ending feel a bit too easy. Readers will be pleased though not wowed.