Talk Sweetly to Me (Brothers Sinister, #4.5) by Courtney Milan

Talk Sweetly to Me by Courtney Milan

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Stephen Shaughnessy, who appeared in the prior Brothers Sinister work as someone needing to be saved (though somewhat barely making an appearance in the story), stars in this shorter work. With him in the starring role is Rose Sweetly. I’m fairly certain Rose hasn’t appeared in this series up to now. Both have POV’s.

Stephen, as those who might remember from the prior book, is a newspaper columnist with a column titled ‘Ask a Man’. This story here adds 4 novels to his writing career. To add to his relatively disreputable reputation, gained, I mean, from being ‘the man’ columnist for a women’s newspaper, is the part where he’s Irish, Catholic, and known to be something of a ladies man. The player reputation (aka Rake), is probably the easiest for him to ‘handle’, normally. Irish? Catholic? Writes for a women’s paper? In 1882, London, those three things are negatives.

“My father was a stable master,” he told her. “My mother was a seamstress. I’ve done very well for myself, but don’t imagine that I’m one of those gentlemen who look down on you.”

Stephen meets Rose through the odd little accident of living next to her. About two doors down. Actually, to be exact, he lives two doors down from Patricia, Rose’s pregnant married sister. This is why Rose is there – to ‘take care of’ Patricia while her husband, a Naval Doctor, is on assignment.

Stephen, from the first, is intrigued by Rose. Rose, for her part, is flustered by Stephen. Also, there are certain reasons for not wanting his attention. Which I’ll get to later.

In addition to being a helper for her sister, 20 year old Rose actually has a job, a paying job. She’s a computer. A term I’d first heard when I read that nonfiction book that later became a movie I still haven’t seen (referring here to Hidden Figures). A computer is someone hired to do the mathematical calculations for a scientist. They are the kind who tends to be able to do advanced math in their heads. Rose works as a computer for an astronomer.

Right, so, the reasons why Rose doesn’t really wish to receive Stephen’s attention. Many reasons, like how Stephen has that rake reputation and the like. Mostly, though, there’s the part where Stephen, in addition to being Irish, Catholic, etc. etc., is white. Rose, you see, is not. White. She has dark skin, you see, black skin. As does her sister and her sister’s doctor husband (the author notes at the end make mention of things like this – one of the interesting tidbits, to me, was how, by 1882, ‘Britain had probably trained at least as many black doctors as there were dukes.’ And yet, so many historical fiction romances works seem fixated on matching up people with dukes – and yet I almost never see black doctors in historical romances – almost as in never, except here where the husband of a main character’s sister is one, though he makes only a very brief appearance in this novel).

Right, so – much of the book involves a growing attraction between the two main characters, mixed with Rose’s awareness of her position and what the result might be of a union with Stephen (Black, Irish, Catholic children running around).

I liked the story, for the most part. I liked the characters. Story was kind of short, though.

Rating: 3.77

June 17 2018



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