Reviews with content warning for Physical abuse - Islands of Mercy

Not worth the time. 1) The half-baked "romance" between Julietta and Jane (arguably the crux of the story) is dubious at best. At worst? Downright predatory and exploitative. Julietta's experience, weighed against Jane's apparent innocence in regards to sexuality and sexual expression, creates an unbalanced dynamic that often becomes uncomfortable.
2) Valentine Ross' inexplicable derailment into a violent misogynist comes out of nowhere. One (!!!) refusal of marriage is enough to make the once mild-mannered doctor frequently fantasise about strangling, subjugating and otherwise harming Jane,

which culminates in an outburst that leaves her bed-ridden after a miscarriage leads to life-threatening hemorrhaging.

It's disgusting.
3) The framing of Ralph Savage's relationship with his servant is also not good. There seems to be an implication that, because Leon holds some weird sexual power over Ralph, they are somehow equal under circumstances where that is just... not possible. Ick.

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mrodrigues23's review

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dark emotional inspiring tense

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

Amazing book that includes a Sapphic relationship. The book also takes a glance into the perspective of the thoughts of an abuser and the rationalisation that occurred due to there being a patriarchal society that forces women to submit to men and a potential and very realist portrayal of what can happen when a man's ego and pride is wounded. I would also like to point out that due to the patriarchal society one of the females in the gay relationship appeared to have a warped view of what a woman loving woman relationship consisted of. I believe it was her way of at some points rationalising this and being able to be her bisexual self without endangering her beliefs. The societal expectation are also what drove the MC into the abusive 'relationship'.

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serendipitysbooks's review against another edition

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challenging emotional reflective sad medium-paced

3.75

Islands of Mercy is a hard book to summarise and review because there is a large cast of characters with many interwoven storylines. At the centre is Jane Adeane. When we first meet her it’s 1865 and she is working with her father, a doctor and surgeon in the town of Bath. Jane is known as the Angel of Baths for the assistance she provides those seeking cure in the waters. After rejecting a proposal from father’s assistant Valentine she flees to her aunt’s place in London, is introduced to Bohemian life and begins a passionate affair with a married woman named Julietta. For me personally the novel was at its strongest when focussing on Jane.

Parts of the novel took place in Borneo where Valentine’s brother, a naturalist, has contracted malaria and is being cared for by a British man who was discharged from the army for homosexuality and is now attempting to improve the life of the indigenous peoples, but in a rather half-hearted and somewhat clueless way. These sections did not work as well for me and didn’t feel well connected to what I felt were the main storylines in Bath.

Tremain wrote some beautiful passages and I loved seeing how themes such as passions (and not just sexual ones) vs conventionality, colonialism, and finding sanctuary played out in different characters and different locations. Bits of this story I really loved but as a whole it didn’t fully coalesce or entirely work for me.

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librariangeorgia's review against another edition

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challenging emotional slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

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rlaurene's review against another edition

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emotional reflective slow-paced

Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

Islands of Mercy is set in the British Empire of the Victorian era, following a cast of characters in England and Borneo.

The concept behind the construction of this book is interesting. By writing in a faux-Victorian style, Tremain can almost retrospectively insert taboo topics (LGBTQ+ issues, miscarriage, relationships outside of marriage, the subjects of imperial rule) into Victorian discourse. But it doesn't quite come off.

Part of the issue, I think, is that Tremain never really nails the style. She seems to write long sentences with little regard of what they actually say. None of her descriptions could be compared to Dickens's opening of Bleak House, for instance. They sometimes get time and places muddled for the reader. And there are some passages that so very nearly come off musical, until you stumble on an odd word choice. One example:
'And it felt to the two lovers that their intimate world had taken on an oily, liquified form in which sorrow and desire gleamed and trembled with rainbow colours, like unction falling upon water.'
I understand what she's trying to say here, but 'unction' is a harsh-sounding word in this slick, intimate image. Surely 'blessing' would slot in well? At other points, it reads as though the thesaurus has been cracked open to choose a more complex word where it wasn't exactly necessary.

Tremain also misses something with her themes. The scenes in Borneo come too close to depicting the British Empire as a benign (if lethargic) rule, with the villains being disease and, briefly, Australian miners for some reason. There's also little sense of the problematic relationship between England and Ireland. Clorinda, the Irish character, faces no discrimination, and rural Ireland is depicted as the usual idyll. There may also be an appropriation of the Jewish figure of the golem, but I'm not familiar enough with the folklore and history behind the golem to say this for certain.

The characters are rather hit and miss. Edmund is quite delightful, and it is a shame there are not more chapters from his perspective. Jane reads too much like a modern woman and Juliette borders on annoying, and their relationship doesn't really have the stakes it should. Valentine, the doctor who proposes to Jane at the very beginning of the book, suffers such a character assassination, with no arc or preamble, it is disconcerting for the reader. The best characters are the novel's maternal figures: Emmeline, Jane's painter aunt (who is the right touch of modern for the Victorian era; Clorinda; Taminah, the mother of Leon.

Islands of Mercy is worth the read, particularly if you're looking for LGBTQ+ representation in historical fiction. But I don't think it quite makes all the shots it is aiming for.

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