Book Cover for Beyond the Moon by Catherine Taylor shows title and author.Thanks to NetGalley and Cameo Press LTD/Author Buzz for a free copy of Beyond the Moon in exchange for an honest review.

Beyond the Moon by Catherine Taylor

Genre: Historical romance with time-travel and mystery elements

Publisher: Author Buzz

Publication Date: June 25, 2019 (Buy it now on Amazon!)

Summary

1917. Coldbrook Hall military hospital, Sussex England. Lieutenant Robert Lovett suffers from shell-shock that has blinded him. A passionate artist, he fears that he will never again paint, much less return to his men on the battlefield.

2017. Coldbrook Hall psychiatric hospital, Sussex, England. Medical student Louisa Casson has just buried her only close relative, her beloved grandmother. When searchers find her lying halfway down a notorious suicide spot, doctors fear for her mental health and place her in Coldbrook Hall. It’s a cruel, lonely place run by a nurse nicknamed Nurse Enema. One day, while exploring an abandoned section of the old building, she stumbles on a man in a room. His name is Robert Lovett.

Though initially she believes he is delusional, she soon wonders if she’s psychotic. Then, as improbably as it seems, she continues to find him. Only his room is in 1917, and she’s invisible to everyone else but him. The two forge a bond and fall in love.

But for them to stay together, Louisa needs to find a way to join him in the past. Her journey will take her beyond anything she could’ve imagined and right into the heart of a dangerous war.

My thoughts.

Romance isn’t my usual reading fare. But I decided to give this one a chance because of the time-travel element (a current research interest) and the historical time period. World War I has always interested me because it was such a game-changer in warfare.

The book is beautifully written. It shifts between the past, when Robert fights in the war and recovers from his injuries, and the present, when Louisa fights to maintain her sanity in a psychiatric hospital. Overall, I found the historical parts more compelling than the present day ones.

Here’s what I enjoyed.

Excellent portrayal of World War I

Taylor’s words capture the horrors of trench warfare. Rats eating bloated corpses. Trench foot. Fear of a gas attack. Filthy, half-starved soldiers, weary of war, uncertain what they are fighting for anymore. Leaders writing merciful lies to victims’ families–a sniper, one shot through the head, your son died immediately— though the dead often die in agony. And back home in Britain, the powerful men who, from the safety of their own offices, are ordering more men into the battlefields. Taylor takes us there, into the trenches and makes us experience it along with Robert.

Interesting insights into WWI-era medicine

Doctors tell Robert that his shell shock is the “result of a shell exploding too close to the head, causing lesions. ‘An invisibly fine molecular commotion in the brain'” (chapter 10). A hundred years later, our understanding of this has changed. It’s fascinating to read and compare the differences in medical knowledge.

When Louisa accidentally ends up in 1917, people mistake her for Rose Ashby, a VAD nurse in a hospital in France. The nurses and doctors do their best. But the young men brought in from the nearby battlefield are often too wounded to survive. Things that are routine now–blood transfusions, chest compressions, antibiotics–were either experimental or completely unavailable.

Louisa and Robert’s first encounter

It takes a while to get to the romantic leads’ first meeting. Robert is calling for help, and Louisa can’t turn away from any injured person, even if they are unseen. Even when she knows she’ll be in trouble with the psychiatric hospital staff for being in an off-limits part of the building, her instinct is to help. And so she goes to Robert.

Both are drawn to one another. Obviously! But it’s not just a physical attraction. It’s a feeling of kinship: they are both unhappy, fearful, and lonely. They fill a need in each other’s life. It’s lovely to see them fall in love, even when being together seems impossible.

Interesting minor characters

Robert’s best friend is a conscientious objector/painter named Edgar. He’s a fascinating person. I was also intrigued by the various ways the author uses Marisa, Flora, and Kerry, women that Louisa grows to care about.

There are a few weaker areas, though.

It took me a while to warm up to Louisa. While her depression is understandable, she seems purposeless, like she is drifting through despair. Her backstory about her troubled teenage years and abandonment felt underdeveloped, too. Once she meets Robert and her compassionate side reawakens, I started to like and root for her.

Also, I never quite bought the medical rationale for admitting Louisa into a psychiatric hospital against her will. The doctors are insistent that she’s suicidal, though she knows better, but their evidence is circumstantial. (Where I live in the U.S., the process is also more legally complicated and not entirely up to the doctors.)

I also never understood how the visiting psychiatrists to Coldbrook Hall Hospital don’t see how cruel the head nurse is nor how the hospital’s “care” isn’t helping the patients at all. They seem oblivious. Other than the medications, the hospital seems more Victorian than 21st century, and certainly doesn’t reflect recent reforms in psychiatric care.

Overall, Beyond the Moon is a strong novel.

If you like historical romance, you might enjoy this. I’ve read it compared to the novels of Diana Gabaldon and Kate Morton. While I haven’t read Gabaldon, I think Beyond the Moon is a good fit for Kate Morton fans. Of the books I’ve recently read, I would compare the tone of this book to The Orphan’s Song by Lauren Kate.

Thanks again to NetGalley and AuthorBuzz for the opportunity to read Beyond the Moon in exchange for an honest review.