A Love by Design

Starred review from October 1, 2022

Lending a fresh perspective to historical romance, Everett's latest installment in her "Secret Scientists of London" Victorian series (following A Perfect Equation) centers on Margaret Gault. Recently widowed, she has returned to London to fulfill her dream of starting her own engineering firm, but she did not count on reuniting with her childhood love, Earl Grantham. Readers familiar with the series will recognize both from previous books, but here they take center stage for a charming story of second-chance love. This book is an excellent entry point to the series, but longtime fans won't find that Everett simply re-treads the same ground. Grantham and Margaret's struggle between their conflicting dreams and desires makes for excellent tension. Everett skillfully creates character moments, building a reunited-lovers scenario that allows both parties to have been wrong and right in past actions, and creating a lasting connection between her characters as they come together once again. VERDICT Enjoyable characters and an avoidance of many of the most common tropes of historical romance enliven Everett's novel; a must-read for those looking for STEM romances.--Brigid Black

Copyright 2022 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 10, 2022
Everett’s disappointing third Secret Scientists of London Regency romance (after A Perfect Equation) again grants readers a glimpse inside Athena’s Retreat, a haven for female scientists in a world that refuses to acknowledge their intelligence. This premise remains a valiant attempt to shine a light on Regency women outside of the domestic sphere, but this installment unfortunately devolves into an overdramatized and unbelievable mess. Margaret Gault, a hardworking, devoted, and ambitious engineer, has been given a commission that may make her career: to design a tunnel underneath the Thames. As she tackles this monumental project, she rekindles her love with her childhood friend George Willis, now the Earl Grantham. The romantic plot is simplified to a point that it leaves essential chemistry lacking—right up until the couple face sudden danger in the jarring climactic twist. The use of modern slang (the word clit appears multiple times) will pull readers from the narrative while the tidy resolution to a well-established tangle of seemingly insurmountable conflicts fails to satisfy. There’s too little substance behind any of it for readers to feel attached to either the characters or the world they inhabit. Fans will hope for a return to form in future installments. Agent: Ann Leslie Tuttle, Dystel, Goderich & Bourret.

Starred review from November 15, 2022
This Victorian romance builds a bridge over the seeming gap between heterosexual romantic couplehood and a woman's professional fulfillment. The third novel in Everett's Secret Scientists of London series pairs engineer Margaret "Maggie" Gault and George Willis, Earl Grantham, estranged childhood sweethearts. When a widowed Maggie returns to England after her supportive French husband's death, she expects to strive alone in establishing the first woman-owned engineering firm. Despite the support of the other members of Athena's Retreat, a secret club for women scientists, she expects that an ethical compromise she has made to get a life-changing commission will soon earn their disapproval. George, the man who abandoned her as a teenager, is an additional concern, though he seems different from the boy she had trusted or the genial ne'er-do-well the aristocracy once thought him to be. Having grieved his well-meant but misguided abandonment of Maggie, he's hopeful of a reconciliation, but his goal of ruining an opponent of liberal reform puts Maggie's ambitions at risk. Everett raises the stakes from personal love to political battles, framing individual romance against the backdrop of gender and class struggle. Written with an evenhanded mix of slapstick, emotional confrontations, and scenes of intimacy that include reproductive choices, this novel may be the strongest one of the series yet. Fans of Lisa Kleypas will also appreciate glimpses of the tropes she's popularized in the Victorian historical romance genre, including "hurt/comfort," fused with a sequence reminiscent of the scene in Ang Lee's Sense and Sensibility in which Alan Rickman's Brandon carries Kate Winslet's Marianne home. A second-chance, friends-to-enemies-to-lovers romance that imagines smashing the patriarchy.

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Starred review from December 1, 2022
Margaret Gault spends her professional life as an engineer figuring out ways to overcome obstacles. So when her father-in-law closes the family's engineering firm after the death of her husband, Margaret strikes out on her own. Returning home to England seems like a good start to her new business plan, especially when she is contracted to build a railway tunnel under the Thames. However, Margaret encounters two new obstacles. One of the parties funding the project turns out to be the founder of a group of misogynists with a misguided moralistic agenda. Secondly, Margaret finds herself constantly crossing paths with the earl of Grantham, who 16 years earlier broke Margaret's heart. No one does a better job at making science sexy than Everett (A Perfect Equation, 2022), and the latest artfully engineered addition to her Secret Scientists of London series is another triumph of emotional vulnerability and sizzling sexual chemistry. Built upon a solid foundation of engaging characterization and innovative plotting, this clever historical romance is deftly embellished with delightfully droll humor.

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