Flowers from the Storm

"As a romance writer, I hugely admire those authors who take on a serious challenge. It’s not particularly difficult to match two smart, funny people, especially if they have a modicum of good looks and at least one paycheck between the two of them. It is far more difficult to create a novel that circles around a relationship that seems impossible. Because we write in a genre (romance), I think it is particularly important that the reader experience some uncertainty – a nervous sense that this time the promise of the genre might not come true (a parallel would be the mystery that is utterly unsolvable halfway through). “It is far more difficult to create a novel that circles around a relationship that seems impossible” In Flowers from the Storm, Kinsale’s hero is a brilliant and dashing nobleman – who’s had a stroke. He can’t speak properly; he can’t make himself understood; he’s been shut away in a morbid mental asylum. Her heroine is someone from an entirely different class, a Quaker who volunteers to help in the asylum. Pairing the two of them – getting past the obstacles of health, class and general moral understanding – was a tremendous challenge, and Kinsale succeeded brilliantly. Romance is like literary fiction or any other genre: some of it is written brilliantly, and a great deal of it isn’t. I don’t think it’s accurate to characterise the genre as a whole. Kinsale’s book offers a thoroughly researched look at treatments for dementia in the period, an accurate description of stroke recovery, and a long story about how a Quaker and an English nobleman could overcome the many difficulties that stand in the way of a match like theirs."