The Reading Frenzy: Blog Tour- Isabelle and Alexander by Rebecca Anderson- Review

Hi all! Today is my stop on the Isabelle and Alexander blog tour a Victorian Era Proper Romance set in Manchester England and I'll be providing my review. There are over forty blogs participating in the tour with reviews, exclusive excerpts and spotlights so be sure and visit as many as you can!

Enjoy!

ASIN: B093K2MQ7
Publisher: Shadow Mountain
Release Date: 5-4-2021
Length: 238pp
Source: Publisher/Author for review

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Overview:

Isabelle Rackham knows she will not marry for love. Though arranged marriages have fallen out of fashion, hers has been settled for some time to combine the upper-middle-class wealth of her father's coal mines with Alexander Osgood's prospering Northern country textile mills. Though not a man prone to romantic gestures, Alexander is well-known as an eligible bachelor. His good looks have turned more than one head, so Isabelle is content to think of herself as Alexander's wife.

However, her marriage is not what she expected. Northern England is nothing like her home farther west in the lake country. Cold, dreary, and dark, the soot from the textile mills creates a gray hue that seems to cling to everything in the city of Manchester. Alexander is distant and aloof, preferring to spend his time at the mill rather than with her at home. Their few conversations are brief, polite, and lacking any emotion, leaving Isabelle lonely and desperately homesick.

Sensing his wife's unhappiness, Alexander suggests a trip to his country estate. Isabelle hopes this will be an opportunity to get to know her new husband without the distractions of his business. But the change of scenery doesn't bring them any closer. While riding together on horses, Alexander is thrown from his and becomes paralyzed. Tragedy or destiny? The help and care that Alexander now needs is Isabelle's opportunity to forge a connection and create a deep and romantic love where nothing else could.

My Review:

Isabelle and Alexander
Rebecca Anderson

Anderson’s first foray into historical romance comes with a great deal of challenges that would put any modern couple on thin ice and some very important societal injustices that she handles with spunk and compassion.

Isabelle Rackham was raised to be a good daughter and didn’t even blink when her parents proposed an arranged marriage to Alexander Osgood, a handsome Manchester textile mill owner that would benefit her father’s coal mine operations. So while silently hoping the marriage could become a love match, Isabelle does her duty and becomes Mrs. Alexander Osgood. Then very early in their marriage during a trip to Alexander’s country estate disaster strikes and Isabelle and Alexander’s lives are turned upside down when Alexander is paralyzed in a tragic accident leaving Isabelle feeling ill prepared for how to help Alexander and Alexander ill prepared on how to survive his new reality and putting how to be a newly married couple in limbo.

Readers meet the happy couple on their wedding day and only enjoy Isabelle’s POV via a flowing period perfect narrative. They will occasionally want to beat Alexander over the head even knowing he’s Victorian and English and they will enjoy many exceptional characters all throughout this phenomenal story. Take Glory a very talented special needs young woman who her parents decide to keep at home and not institutionalize and the remarkable Osgood textile mill employees and household staff and the author even throws in a nurse Ratchet to be terrorized by. Then there are the two absolutely unforgettable stars who will both grow in character and personal strength because and in-spite of the many obstacles thrown at them, Alexander from aloof to damaged both psychically and emotionally and Isabelle from a naïve society daughter to a capable and courageous woman and wife.
Fans of historical fiction, of proper romance and arranged marriage novels will love this book and look forward to Rebecca Anderson’s next endeavor.

Praise:

"Anderson’s first foray into historical romance is an atypical, yet satisfying story set in Victorian Manchester’s upper middle class. Hand this to readers looking for a book that navigates the peaks and valleys of two strangers attempting to make a life together despite the hardships life throws at them."— Library Journal

· "Isabelle transitions from an unaware, leisure-class woman to a more enlightened spouse and supporter of the working class. Intimacy and romance develop between Isabelle and Alexander because of simple gestures, like a long look or a thoughtful gift, and their conversations. Their slow, stately courting is reader appropriate for any age or audience. Manchester also gets its due as a place of grit and incredible production. Descriptions of bustling mills reveal their impact on the couple’s family and its fortunes. Isabelle and Alexander is an intimate and touching romance novel that focuses on women’s lives in the business class of industrial England."— Foreword Reviews

· "Isabelle must use her quiet spunk, busy mind, and compassionate spirit to woo her husband in a wholly new way. Anderson's debut is a lovely northern England Victorian romance about confronting the seemingly impossible and the power of empathy. Anderson also addresses the time period’s treatment of physical and intellectual disabilities. Most of all, she beautifully depicts love in its many forms beyond romance, such as compassion, patience, and vulnerability; and her characters illustrate the ways that these expressions of love carry us through even the darkest hours. Isabelle’s loving and persevering fervor and devotion will resonate with any caregiver’s heart."— Booklist

About the author:

Rebecca Anderson is the nom de plume of contemporary romance novelist Becca Wilhite, author of Wedding Belles: A Novel in Four Parts, Check Me Out, and My Ridiculous Romantic Obsessions. Isabelle and Alexander is her debut historical romance novel.
High school English teacher by day, writer by night (or very early morning), she loves hiking, Broadway shows, food, books, and movies. She is happily married and a mom to four above-average kids.

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