She's the best nurse in a fever hospital that despises her for being Irish, poor, and a woman — and she has buried every soft thing she ever owned.
Then Sean O'Connor walks onto her ward and won't look away.
He's a dockworker's son in a gentleman's coat. A surgeon who can't stop trying to mend every broken thing in his path. He's opening a clinic in the worst slum in London, and he wants her at his side.
Night after night, across a cellar full of the dying, Nora learns the one thing that can undo all her armor: a man who truly sees her — and stays.
But cholera is rising up the river. The reformers are circling. And the secret Nora carries could destroy them both.
She has no use for a rescuer. He has never loved anyone he wasn't also trying to save. And the distance between a Cork nurse and a marquess's nephew is the kind that ruins people.
Unless, together, they can build a place where both belong.
A sweeping, emotional Victorian romance of class, courage, and finding light in the dark. For fans of Lisa Kleypas and Mimi Matthews.
Violet Sinclair writes historical romance for readers who believe a glance across a ballroom can ruin you more thoroughly than a kiss.
Her heroines are American — bold, inconvenient, and absolutely unwilling to be grateful for the privilege of marrying into British aristocracy. They crossed an ocean with their own money and their own opinions, and they have no intention of leaving either at the door. Her heroes are titled, impeccable, and accustomed to women who follow the rules. They have never met anyone like her. They are not prepared.