1817 Edinburgh. An upper class young woman who dreams of becoming a surgeon. A resurrection man just trying to survive using whatever means necessary. Admittedly, I was initially drawn to ANATOMY because of the author's podcast, Noble Blood. As it turned out, the book more than stands on its own merit - I absolutely inhaled this one and would love to see a follow-up novel (& this coming from a reader who loves her standalones!) Plus a make-out sesh in an open grave...HERE FOR IT.

This book is an absolute delight!! I shouldn’t have used the word “delight” considering the theme and setting of this love story, but I couldn’t find a better word 🙈 I’m not joking, the story has death and disease!! Anatomy is one of those stories that has several elements rolled into it - love, intrigue, feminism and fantasy. Each of these elements are blended nice into the story. Its unusually incredible ending elevated the star points for me.

Came for the cover, stayed for the story. Thank you St.Martin’s press via Netgalley for the reader’s copy.

I loved the slow burn of the societally discouraged aspiring female surgeon and the graverobber all in the midst of a big mystery. I hope this is the begging of something more!

This book captured me from the cover art to the endpapers; a thrilling and wonderful tale of anatomy, society, medical arts in the Victorian era, and romance. Loved it to pieces!!!

Dana Schwartz has written a fine evocation of early medical education and experimentation, and class stratification in the UK wrapped up in a love story. I found #anatomyalovestory to be a very enjoyable read full of descriptions that evoked time and place wonderfully. Plus an ending that, initially,will take your breathe away. Enjoy this lovely gothic tale. I loved it! Thank to #netgalley and #wednesdaybooks for this copy to read and review. All opinions are my own.

I definitely enjoyed this. Just a heads up, I thought it was going to be pure historical fiction/mystery, but it has a speculative/fantasy element as well.

Hazel is a fascinating main character. She longs to be a a surgeon, but it's Scotland in the 1800s. Jack mostly just wants to live, and his trade often veers into procuring dead bodies. He knows it's risky, but what else are you gonna do when you need to eat? I loved their romance and thought they went well together.

The actual plot of the book is a little disjointed. We have Hazel wanting to be a surgeon and the challenges she faces there, a new wave of a plague, the mystery that is Dr. Beechem, and mystery murders going on in Edinburgh. In the second half of the book we see Hazel setting up a hospital in her house and deviating from the other plots entirely for a while. Then we go back to the mysteries, and a surprise bit of magic (?) is thrown in. The ending is a bit up in the air, and we are left unsure of where Hazel will go next.

I must say this absolutely stunning cover is what drew me to this one at first. Set in the early 19th century in Edinburgh, Hazel wants nothing more than to study medicine - a thing while not explicitly forbidden is certainly not encouraged. But absent parents and being related to the local viscount (her uncle - and it is assumed that she will marry his heir, her cousin), has given her more freedom than other young women of her age and class. the other main character, Jack Currer, is a resurrection man - he spirits away the dead for doctors and medical students to study.

Hazel, bookish and intelligent, makes for a likable heroine. And though the time period feels authentic, the book reveals itself to be more fantastical than historical. The ending is rather open to interpretation and it concludes without resolution or any sense of justice being meted out. I suppose in that way, this will lead to lively discussions amongst readers, but detracted for me. The odd plague, the doctor and Hazel's futures are all left dangling...

The central romance is sweet but not exactly unexpected. It's a quick read, though, and certainly entertaining. I just wish that the conclusion had been more satisfying.

Holy crap. This book was amazing. It yanked me right out of a reading slump and had me devouring it nearly entirely in one day. I could NOT walk away.

A bit of Frankenstein, a bit Dickens, a bit Sherlock Holmes, Anatomy is just a mesmerizing narrative that had me captivated from the beginning. Gothic, Victorian, and mysterious with a strong female protagonist. It has things that just get me excited to read.

The writing is excellent and the pacing just flies. The narrative is gritty and awesome, reflecting on the female situation in the early 19th century and the misogyny that strongly existed in this era with regard to employment, social standing, and the worth of opinion. Hazel is a badass female character and I freaking adored her.

The medical aspect of the book was awesome and I loved it so much. Not for the squeamish, but so freaking good otherwise. Just enough dark and weird to whet my appetite and I am chomping at the bit for more. There is some indication from the author that there may be a follow-up novel coming in the future and I could go ahead and take that right now thank you.

The ending is a bit rushed and there is something of an ambivalent ending, but if there is to be a continuation of this as a series...all good. I'm down for more. Let's do this thing.

* Disclaimer: I received a copy of this novel from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. *

I didn't know if I could meet the deadline to read Anatomy: A Love Story by Dana Schwartz and write a review. I needn't have worried. The pages flew by, and I was not ready for the end when it arrived.

I've written extensively about Frankenstein in the past, and the ol' "hanging out at Bath" trope is one with which I've been familiar since the first time I read Austen a quarter-century ago. What I'm trying to say is that, though Schwartz and I have had very different lives and experiences, the love for the literature and the history is something we have in common. It would have been all too easy to create a historical romance during this time period full of anachronisms, one that didn't ring true. However, Schwartz struck no false notes in her attempt to ground this love story in a world where Sense & Sensibility is the hot new release.

Hazel Sinnett would likely get along well with Elinor Dashwood, although she'd roll her eyes at Elinor every now and then. They'd definitely have a lot to talk about as women whose greatest value (and greatest burden) is their marriage eligibility. The Austen heroine who I always wished for (and the one I suspect Austen wanted to write) is the one that refused to buy into marriage, instead seeking a life of her own making. Hazel wants to be a physician, but--of course--that isn't an acceptable role for a woman.

Jack Currer, on the other hand, is a character who crawled out of a Dickens novel and into a grave a la Victor Frankenstein. He calls himself a resurrection man because, when you take pride in your work (and don't steal the clothes), it isn't just "grave robbing."

These building blocks could have been the basis of multiple novels, but the one that Schwartz writes is a romance. There are some conventions of the genre with which Schwartz plays fast and loose. On the fantastic side of things, Schwartz succeeds more fully; she uses the authentic feeling of the time period to create space for a little Victor Frankenstein "science"--that is, magic in all but name. Overall, Anatomy is a fast-spaced, fantastic "what-if?" story that kept me on the hook to the very end.

I tried reading this and realized it just isn't for me. I'm not a huge romance fan and the mystery just didn't interest me.

This was one of my favorite YA's of the entire year - Anatomy was gripping and spooky and I fell in love with Hazel as a main character. I wanted to live in this book forever. Already refreshing my feed for a book two?! Dana Schwartz is a master at dialogue and historical details.

A gorgeously written gothic story that is both nostalgic and fresh, romantic and horrifying. Dana’s prose is impossible to resist and I found myself flying through the pages, desperate to find out what happened next!

Our heroine is easy to relate to as she strives to do and be more; helping people is what she does best, yet given the time she lives in it seems unlikely she’ll ever be able to pursue her dream.

The love interest and secondary point of view is endearing and a polar opposite to Hazel, in the best way. Their dynamic is easy to enjoy and hard not to root for.

My biggest qualm is that there’s not more of it! The ending came about so quickly and I desperately wish to follow these characters for even a chapter longer, but that is a sign of a good book.

Thank you netgalley for the free ARC in return for an honest review.

Lady Hazel Sinnet wagers with the esteemed surgeon Dr. Beecher that if she passes the physician's test, he will allow females into his anatomy course and he will get her a position as a doctor. Hazel is as resourceful as she is smartand will do almost anything, including buying dead bodies to learn hands-on the anatomy of the human body. She works with resurrectionist (body snatcher) Jack Currer to get specimens and falls in love with him. Hazel is a unique character in this macabre, Victorian set novel.

What a delightful, lovely, sweet novel! Maybe that seems odd at first glance considering the topics of resurrection men, plague-ridden Edinburgh, social constraints on women, and a host of other dastardly things but it's true. What makes this story a joy in the middle of all that darkness is Hazel and Jack, both as individuals and in the love that grows between them.

They are the kind of characters that are impossible not to fall in love with. Hazel is so headstrong and brilliant but she still is soft inside. Jack similarly has retained his heart despite having a cruel hand dealt to him in life. Their personalities truly shine and I just adore them so much I'm sad that I'm finished reading their story. Their love story is just wonderful.

The atmosphere of this book is done so well. You can feel the grim and mist on your skin as you read. It's visceral without being heavy-handed and the prose retains a lightness that the subject matter makes difficult to keep. I'm so impressed by the author in this and am looking forward to reading more from them because the hard work in this story is clear.

There are plenty of great secondary characters, the plot keeps rolling without being too fast, and there's a fantastical element that surprised and delighted me. I could go on but it's all to say that I'd absolutely recommend this novel to any reader. It's such a great story, I think there's something here for everyone.

Note: I received a free electronic edition of this book via NetGalley in exchange for the honest review above. I would like to thank them, the publisher, and the author for the opportunity to do so.

A beautiful, dark, deeply romantic gothic story set in Edinburgh. This book was a whole bloody vibe and it was truly a stunning work of debut art.

🔊Song Pairing: Welcome to the Black Parade - My Chemical Romance

💭What I thought would happen:

I had not the slightest clue. I thought perhaps an exploration of anatomy, it’s YA so I didn’t think it would get too steamy…holy cannoli was I super wrong

🗯Thoughts:

This novel is From Hell meets Sleepy Hollow. So basically Johnny Depp must be in film adaptation.

What I love about hazel is her longing to be a surgeon in the early 19th century when science lead men to believe that women were inferior due to a smaller brain and hysterics. Goodbye to those guys

I related to Hazel hard because she feels as if bringing one book is not enough, using
the argument what If I spill tea on it and have nothing to read! Calamity! Don’t even want to think about being without a book! #soulmate

This book ended and I was like WAIT! WHAT! NOOOOOO!! Do I want more? Yes. Am I also content with the ending. I think so.

Again, in the yellow sticker I trust. This was a truly original story. I loved every bit of it. Each page carried a unique perspective.

Very solid YA historical/light horror book! Very much in the realm of Stalking Jack the Ripper and A Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy, but the most compelling storyline of the bunch in my opinion. The main character is likeable yet we can clearly see the places where her privilege rubs up against the discrimination she faces from being a woman when woman had no power. The part I probably liked best about this book though was the total immersion in the setting and the time period. I felt totally transported. I will definitely have my eyes open for more from this author, because I absolutely flew through this book! Thank you to Neygalley and the publisher for an e-arc in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you so much @NetGalley and @wednesdaybooks for gifting me a copy of Anatomy: A Love Story in exchange for an honest review.

🪦 Mini Review🫀
The moment I saw this cover I had to have it, it is gorgeous 😍😍 After reading the synopsis I knew I was going to love it. And love it I did. I def got some SJTR and Monstrumologist vibes.

I abosolutly loved this book. Once I got into it I couldn’t put it down. Anatomy takes place in Edinburgh, 1817. We follow Hazel, who is a lady that has been betrothed since birth. Although her mother insists that she get married Hazel wants to be a surgeon. She has studied all the text and can tell you how to perform almost anything, but what she lacks is experience.

Our second POV is Jack. He is a ressurection man, which is a person who digs up bodies and sells them to surgeons. He does pretty well for himself but unexplainable things have been happening to the ressurection men in the area. They’ve been going missing and one of them is his closest friend.

Hazel gets a chance to sit under the lectures of renowned surgeon Dr. Beecham and get some hands on experience but after a few classes she gets kicked out since she is a girl. Thankfully she met Jack not too long ago and knows what kind of man he is and realizes how helpful he will be. She has money and he can get bodies for her to practice on. If she can pass the medical examination coming up she will be able to work under Beecham and live her dream. But things aren’t always as easy as we think.

This book kept me up till 1am because I had to finish it. I love the characters but most of all I loved the story. I loved the little historical fiction we got in this as well. There was one instance in the story that I wasn’t a fan of, which is why I didn’t give it 5 stars.

I seriously recommend this book to those who love gothic stories and don’t mind some graphic details. I gave this book ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫

3.75
Who knew that you could fit a love story, grave digging, and anatomy classes all into one book? Dana Schwartz has done it and was able to through some mystery in there for a little extra fun.

It is 1817 in Edinburgh and Hazel Sinnett has wanted nothing more than to be a surgeon. She has spent her life reading books and doing her own experiments and has decided that she is going to take classes from the world-renowned Dr. Beecham. Shortly after the beginning of classes, she is kicked out for being a woman. She makes a deal with Dr. Beecham that if she can pass the medical exam on her own then the university will allow her to enroll.

Jack Currer is a resurrection man (grave robber) just trying to survive. After a chance encounter with Hazel, she realizes that she is going to need bodies to study and that Jack is just the person to help her.

At this same time, the Roman plague is going around and killing tons of people that society doesn't think matters...poor people. There are also resurrection men going missing. Hazel and Jack also decide to take on these mysteries.

I enjoyed this book. I was not bowled over by this book. It is a very slow burn. Not much in the way of real mystery or intrigue until the last 40% of the book. The characters were likeable, but I was a bit disappointed that we didn't get more of a back story on Jack.

I received this book in exchange for my honest opinion.

1.5 stars. This was a major disappointment. I’ve been a fan of the author’s "Noble Blood" podcast since the beginning and had such high expectations for her literary debut.

For a book that literally has the promise "LOVE STORY" in the title, the love story only takes up the last half of the book, and is therefore half-baked and underwhelming.

I can't get over how insufferably naive and "not-like-other-girls" Hazel is. For someone who's supposedly smart, she's absolutely idiotic and can barely think her way out of most situations. She gets kicked out of a guest lecture that takes place once or twice out of the five scheduled lectures a week, and she spends the entire rest of the day, night, and morning after crying in her bed and then smashing things around her room that leads to cuts on her legs instead of thinking up ways around her ban. Instead, Hazel creates more work for the only maid (besides the scullery girl) left in the estate, bless her, even if Hazel promised to clean up and tend to her own cuts.

Why not just skip that sexist surgeon’s lectures, she wasn’t kicked out of the main professor's classes???

Don't get me started on how she converted her house into a hospital without a license, or at the very least, completing her studies/exam (a consequence of one of her many stupid choices). Even if the Edinburgh Anatomist’s Society rejects her on the basis of her gender, having passed the exam is credible proof for her and her patients that she has completed the necessary theoretical and practical training, and is therefore qualified to perform this kind of important work.

She basically endangered her staff by bringing in patients with infectious diseases into her castle and endangered her patients by practicing medical procedures and administering treatments on them that she has no confirmation will work. I cannot stress enough how heinously she breached ethical standards by treating her patients as guinea pigs for her own untested medical theories and her staff as potential collateral damage not worth protecting—and all to fulfill her fantasy of becoming renowned rather than, I don't know, helping people stay alive and healthy without expecting a huge personal reward? But of course, her main character privilege affords her the luxury of ~being right all along~.

The narrative is so adamant about her being oppressed as a woman (and just sweeps the fact that she is rich, titled, white, cis, straight, able-bodied, and conventionally attractive under the rug) that it contrives to create situations that demonstrate just how much she is at a disadvantage - even though the situations don’t make sense! A constable of the land her family is in charge of talks down to her despite the fact he literally owes his livelihood and home to her family, on top of the fact that she is his social superior. A guest lecturing surgeon tells her she’s incapable of surgery because he believes women have smaller brains. All because she’s a *girl.*

I’m not saying being a Western woman in centuries past was a walk in the park or that their struggles don’t exist - they did and still do. But so many amateur historical fiction writers emphasize how miserable it was to be a woman before the feminist movements of the later 20th century, and that it wasn't possible for women to find anything to love, to take joy and pride in as women. And honestly, that attitude is just as misogynistic as any society these girls who are supposedly “ahead of their time” are stuck in.

For a book that supposedly tackles feminist themes, we only have about four actual named female characters, including Hazel, none of whom are particularly inspiring or at least well-developed, and no queer or PoC characters.

As for Jack, we could basically swap him with one of the corpses he digs up and it would have the same personality and function in the story as he did.

Plus, I can’t be the only reader who found the descriptions of clothing like crinolines, “corsets” instead of stays, and other such articles more Victorian than Regency?

That one passage about her being too hot in her thickly-layered dress in the summer particularly infuriated me. The Neoclassical movement of 1795-1820 shifted toward lighter fabrics, such as muslin and cotton, and slimmer silhouettes and therefore less layers—what is there for Hazel to complain about?

Clearly more research was needed to ground the characters and story more firmly in the time period instead of wasting pages pushing the lifeless romance between the two stale leads. Furthermore, people back then knew how to dress for the weather, knew and used seasonally-appropriate textiles and styles. Let’s give the people of the past some credit for knowing how to dress and how to survive the elements, because if they didn’t, we wouldn’t be here to read this disappointing mess, would we?

SPOILER
What is with that twist about alchemy in the end??? Nothing about the narrative and themes led up to an alchemical pursuit and achievement of immortality, so how can immortality be the logical narrative solution? Sure, we got that one not-so-subtle hint about Professor Beecham never taking off his gloves, but that's it.
END SPOILER

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC.