Dr. Todson’s Home for Incorrigible Women by Riley LaShea is an exciting, historical romance set in Victoria England.
Caroline Ajax’s husband has had quite enough of her. She’s completely inconvenient. She’s hot-tempered, emotional, and she treats their staff as if they were her equals. She’s prone to bouts of melancholy and worst of all, she hasn’t given him an heir. When he deposits her at an institution for women in the Surrey countryside, her only hope is to survive and gain some semblance of a normal life – whatever that means. It doesn’t take her long to not notice that the home, its residents, and its administrator are not what they seem.
Eirinn Todson is brilliant, determined, and wholly unconventional. She’s been unabashedly making her way through the world of men to achieve her dream. She’s going to become a Doctor of Medicine no matter how impossible the English university system makes it. After working with Dr. Elizabeth Garret Anderson, the only doctor in London who’s a woman, she makes her way to Paris to continue her education.
Paris is everything Eirinn hopes. With her best friend, Rand at her side they begin treating patients who can’t seek medical attention from established doctors or regulated hospitals without drawing attention from the local police. One night, tall dark and handsome Aya turns up on Eirinn’s doorstep. Run through with a sword, she can barely make it up the stairs to Eirinn’s bedroom. Eirinn employs everything she’s learned along with Rand’s natural remedies to try and save Aya, but her injuries are extensive. If Aya didn’t still have the energy to blatantly flirt with her, Eirinn would think the situation was hopeless.
Within days, Aya is on the mend and determined to seduce the good doctor. Eirinn has no problem with that although becoming involved with a wanted thief isn’t something she saw in her future. As the women’s connection grows deeper, the police begin searching for the nameless burglar hiding somewhere in the city. It’s at this point Eirinn must decide if she’s ready to change the course of her future for a woman she’s only just getting to know.
In the spring of 1886, Eirinn is now Dr. Todson, proprietor of Dr. Todson’s Home for Women. When Caroline Ajax is admitted there, Eirinn has every reason to think she’s just another resident. Of course, Caroline has every reason to believe Dr. Todson’s is a terrifying madhouse. Soon Caroline discovers Dr. Todson’s is filled with secrets, both dangerous and sublime. Before long she bears no resemblance to the despondent woman who first arrived at the home. She’s more content than she’s been in years. Part of that is due to Lei, the brilliant scientist who takes Caroline under her wing.
When Caroline’s brute of a husband demands she sign over the deed to their estate and return to London with him, she shares a secret from her past with Lei, Eirinn, and Aya. All the women at Dr. Todson’s have particular talents that can help Caroline attain her freedom and exact a little social justice while they’re at it. Their plan is a dangerous one, but Caroline’s liberation is worth it.
Pros And My Favourite Parts
The absolute best part of this book is its celebration of found families and the bonds people create when building their chosen homes. The entire cast of Dr. Todson’s Home for Incorrigible Women consists of society’s cast-offs. These women are unique, independent, resourceful, and therefore a danger to society – a society where straight, white men make all the rules. At Todson’s, everyone is accepted at face value, even celebrated for the things others would sneer at. Not only is the home a refuge for the women living there, but it’s also a secure haven for the men who work on the estate. Many of them spent time in London’s jails for “homosexual activity.” Dr. Todson’s is a safe place where everyone is allowed to live their lives authentically with the respect they deserve. Its existence alone is a quiet act of revolution.
Cons And Heads Up
I liked moving between Caroline’s story and Eirinn’s backstory beginning some twenty-four years earlier. Seeing a younger Eirinn pursuing her dream of becoming a doctor was very compelling. Her dedication and passion for medicine drew me into the story, and I was routing for her. She’s forced to leave Paris before she completes her degree and that’s where her backstory ends. I was disappointed I didn’t get to see how she came to own and operate a home for women. Where did she get the money? Did she have actual credentials and if so, how did she get them? How did she present the home to the public? So many questions. I’ll let my imagination conjure up the details.
The Conclusion
Dr. Todson’s Home for Incorrigible Women is a fun read. It’s got everything – romance, a historical backdrop, a bit of thrills, and a dusting of steampunk. I’d say 90% of my reading is contemporary romance so this was a nice change of pace. I found myself invested in a group of dynamic women rather than just one primary couple. Plus, the story delights in defying the patriarchy at every opportunity. See? That’s what I call fun.
Excerpt from Dr. Todson’s Home for Incorrigible Women by Riley LaShea
Like most of London society, she had been raised with the belief touch was generally unwanted, often unseemly, and almost always unnecessary. It should be reserved for those dearest to you, and even then, when in doubt, it was best to keep one’s hands firmly to herself.
But that simply wasn’t how the women at Dr. Todson’s got on.
Francie was always poking her at the table. “Too skinny,” she always said at first, unaware Caroline had long been sensitive of the subject. Headache days, it was difficult to keep food down, if she felt like eating at all, and since so many days were headache days back in London, she had done a lot of unintentional fasting in her life, never keeping weight on the way she should and always looking quite emaciated as a result.
Then, “Glad to see you’re fattening up. You wasn’t gonna make much of a meal if we had to roast you on the spit,” Francie said to her just one night before, noticing the weight Caroline had started to gain and maintain to the point she was thinking about asking Livvie to let her dress out very soon, and Stella had cackled in response.
Blanca was the first to kiss Caroline’s cheek, when she was pecking all the other women before heading off to bed early one night, and Caroline was so unaccustomed to it, it felt like an attack, skittering her mind and sending her senses misfiring in every direction.
Poor breeding. Practically harlots, she could imagine her mother clucking if she saw the way the women at Dr. Todson’s embraced for the sake of embracing, pushing each other’s shoulders in jest, slapping hands when they thought someone was hiding a card, kissing each other’s cheeks in the mornings or at night.
But Caroline found her own breeding fell quickly by the wayside in the face of the spontaneous affections.
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Bits and Bobs
- ISBN number: 9781955155014
- Publisher: Midnight Jasmine Books
- Riley LaShea Online
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