I was at a networking event a few months ago when someone mentioned the podcast Noble Blood, and I immediately subscribed because it sounded like the kind of thing that would be just up my alley, and it is! I’m completely hooked and have been binging the podcast from the beginning. I don’t know what I’m going to do with myself when I get caught up.
The host, Dana Schwartz, came out with an historical fiction novel last year, so of course I had to get the audiobook from my library. I was hoping Schwartz would narrate it herself, but it takes place in Scotland, so she opted for hiring a Scottish woman to narrate it instead. I was only disappointed for a little while because the narrator does a great job.
The book opens in a graveyard in the 1810s with a couple of boys digging a relatively fresh corpse out of its grave. Apparently taking possessions off a dead body comes with a higher penalty than stealing the body, so before hauling it away, they strip it of all its clothes and jewelry before carting it off to a local surgeon who pays them for the carcass.
Meanwhile, in a castle outside of Edinburgh (which is apparently a real castle where Schwartz stayed!) Hazel Sinnett is busy trying to recreate a demonstration she saw of someone using electricity to reanimate a corpse. She fails at first, but eventually manages to get a dead frog to jerk around and sort of give the impression of life. And if you’re wondering, yes the book does take place around the same time Mary Shelley was writing Frankenstein, why do you ask?
Hazel is a teenaged girl born into a wealthy family, but she’s mostly neglected. Her older brother died, her dad has a job that keeps him away from home a lot, and her mom is spending all her time and energy trying to keep Hazel’s younger brother alive so they’ll have an heir to inherit the estate. The good news is this allows Hazel to do pretty much whatever she wants. She has the run of her dad’s library and has been studying anatomy because she’s fascinated by it and wants to become a surgeon.
It’s worth pointing out that, at this point in time, the surgical profession did not enjoy the high standing in society it enjoys today. It was seen as less prestigious than being a physician because physicians worked with their minds and would rarely even lay hands on their patient. By contrast, surgeons had to work with their hands, and as a result, they were seen as a lower class of professionals.
But of course they still need training to know what they’re doing when they cut someone open. It was also considered men’s work because of the physical labor required to do things like saw through bone. But that doesn’t deter Hazel from pursuing her plans to become a surgeon.
When her mother bothers to pay attention to Hazel, she has other plans for her — namely marrying her off to a wealthy man who will be able to provide for her financially for the rest of her life so she won’t have to rely on her younger brother and whomever he ends up marrying when he grows up. As someone who is currently not speaking to my only sister-in-law because of the work she has done to drive a wedge between me and my brother, I can confirm that it’s best not to rely on the good graces of someone who might have every intention of driving you out of your own family.
Hazel has been unofficially engaged to a local boy of good birth since they were kids, but her mom keeps reminding Hazel that she’s not safe until she puts a ring on it. While Hazel likes this guy well enough, she’s more focused on pursuing her dream of becoming a surgeon. She had thought her fiancé would support her in that endeavor, but as they get older, he makes it increasingly clear that he had thought this was just a childhood fancy and that she’ll devote herself to domestic pursuits when they get married.
When Hazel’s mother takes her only surviving son to Bath to escape the Roman Fever that is currently sweeping through Edinburgh again, Hazel takes the opportunity to sign up for a class taught by the grandson of the author of the leading book on anatomy. Because women aren’t allowed to study surgery, Hazel dresses up in her dead brother’s clothes and adopts the name George Hazelton so she can attend classes.
Unfortunately, the class has more than one professor, and the second professor had already met Hazel when she was dressed as Hazel rather than George. He banishes her from the class immediately, but she goes to the other professor and strikes a deal with him. If she can pass the surgeon’s exam, she’ll be allowed to practice as a surgeon and the school will start accepting female students.
Hazel quickly finds out that studying a 3D organ is significantly different from studying a diagram in a book. She needs real-world experience if she’s going to pass the exam.
I can’t remember how she meets Jack Currer, local graverobber, but she ends up hiring him to dig up corpses and bring them to her to study. Specifically, she has him start looking for victims of the Roman Fever so she can try to come up with a cure.
On the day of the exam, Hazel is on her way to take the exam when she sees her two professors engaging in what appears to be some pretty suspicious behavior. She follows them to a theater where she witnesses them take an eye out of young pauper and put it in the head of a rich old man. Turns out they’ve been doing this on the regular for a while now, but of course some organs are trickier than others to successfully implant.
The professor mentions he still hasn’t gotten the heart transplant down quite yet, but he’s eager to keep trying. He has his assistant bring the next unwitting volunteer, which turns out to be none other than Jack.
The professor doesn’t even realize there’s a connection between Jack and Hazel until Hazel yells his name. A fight ensues, and Jack and Hazel both manage to escape, but not before Jack is severely wounded.
Hazel calls her fiancé for help because she doesn’t know where else to turn for help, but that turns out to be the exact wrong move. He sees the way Hazel looks at Jack and realizes Jack has stolen the heart of the woman he intends to marry. So rather than doing what Hazel asks and telling the police what the two crazy professors are doing, he goes to the policy and blames Jack for the disappearances, as well as the graverobbing that has been plaguing Edinburgh of late.
Jack is quickly convicted and sentenced to death by hanging.
While Jack awaits his execution, Hazel confronts the professor, having figured out that he is not the grandson of the author of her favorite book, but is in fact the author of that book. Somehow he has managed to come up with an elixir that allows him to live forever. He has even found it makes him invulnerable to most types of attack. Hazel asks if it prevents death by hanging, but he admits he hasn’t tried that yet.
She convinces him to give her the last of the elixir so she can give it to Jack. Jack refuses to take it, but the very end of the book alludes to the possibility that he’s still out in the world somewhere, so I’m excited to see where Schwartz ends up taking that in the sequel.