Immortality by Dana Schwartz

BIBLIOGRAPHIC DETAILS:
-Print: COPYRIGHT: February 28, 2023; ISBN 978-1250861016; PUBLISHER: Wednesday Books; PAGES 400; Unabridged (Amazon, Hardcover)
-Digital: COPYRIGHT: February 28, 2023; PUBLISHER: Wednesday Books; PAGES 374; FILE 5667 KB; Unabridged (Amazon, Kindle edition)
*Audio: COPYRIGHT: 2/27/2023; PUBLISHER: MacMillan Audio: DURATION: 12 hours (approx.); Unabridged (Libby LAPL)
Feature Film or tv: Not yet.

SERIES: The Anatomy Duology: Book 2

CHARACTERS: (Not comprehensive)
Hazel Sinnett – 17-year-old with an interest in medicine

SUMMARY/ EVALUATION:
-SELECTION CRITERIA: Late one night, I was searching Overdrive for a nonfiction medical book-Anatomy A Love Story was one of the results, and I settled on it, even though it wasn’t actually what I’d been looking for. I liked it so much that I put this sequel on hold as soon as it was available.
-ABOUT: A 17-year-old girl, Hazel Sinnett, whose life had been planned out for her, asserted herself to follow her own interests and desires. Pursuing medicine as a way to help others and make a difference, she finds herself in legal trouble for her efforts. There’s more, but I don’t want to spoil it for you.
-Liked: The characters, the anticipation, the story. Everything.
-Disliked: No, I can’t think of anything I disliked.

AUTHOR:
Dana Schwartz
From Wikipedia:
“Dana Jae Schwartz[1] (born January 7, 1993)[2][3] is an American journalist, screenwriter and author.[4][5] She was previously a correspondent at Entertainment Weekly; she is also the author of four books.[6] She also writes and hosts Noble Blood, a historical weekly podcast for iHeartMedia about the dark side of monarchy.[7”
From Amazon:
“About the Author
Dana Schwartz is a television writer and the creator of the number-one charting history podcast Noble Blood. As a journalist and critic, Dana has written for Entertainment Weekly, Marie Claire, Glamour, GQ, Cosmopolitan, Vanity Fair and more. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband, and their cats Eddie and Beetlejuice. Her books include Choose Your Own Disaster, The White Man's Guide to White Male Writers of the Western Canon, and Anatomy: A Love Story.”

NARRATOR(S):
Mhairi Morrison:
From mhairimorrison.com:
“Mhairi is a classically trained actress who attained her BA in Acting at The Royal Conservatoire of Scotland before studying theatre and movement at Jacques Le Coq School of Theatre in Paris. Following her studies she formed a clown company in Paris and performed extensively throughout France.
Moving to London she worked in film, TV and theatre. TV credits include Casualty (BBC), Emo (Channel 4) and Missing (ITV) Feature film credits include Young Adam (with Ewan McGregor, Tilda Swinton and Emily Mortimer) Wilbur Wants to Kill Himself (Lone Scherfing), Green Street Hooligans (Lexi Alexander) and O, Jerusalem (with Ian Holm, JJ Feild and Mel Raido). Her theatre work includes performing with Presence Theater Company, Blues For Mister Charlie (Tricycle Theatre), Melody (Traverse and Tron Theatres, Scotland) Faeries (Royal Opera House) and touring internationally with award winning company Blind Summit with the show Low Life.
In 2009 she relocated to Los Angeles and created, produced and released 2 seasons of a comedy show Feathers and Toast currently streaming on Amazon Prime. For Feathers and Toast she won Best Actress in a Comedy (Webseries Mag) and was nominated for Best Actress in a Comedy (ISA Awards) Feathers and Toast has been included in the Official Selection at Sunscreen Festival, Hollyweb Festival, Digital Hollywood Festival, screened as The Grauman’s Chinese Theatre as part of Hollyshorts and received an Honorable Mention at Women In Fashion and Film festival She produces and mimes in her series One Mime at a Time.
Mhairi has worked extensively in physical theatre; mime, puppeteering, clown, mask and recently trained in Mocap with veteran Performance Capture artist and instructor, Neil Newbon and at The MoCap Vaults, Los Angeles.
Mhairi is an award winning voice over artist, narrating audio books as well as voicing commercials, video games and documentaries.
She is a human rights activist and attended the FiSahara Human Rights Film festival in Dakhla refugee camp, in the Sahara Desert along the Western Sahara border. She is a co-founder of the Los Angeles Chapter of Amnesty International.
She divides her time between Scotland and Los Angeles."

Tim Campbell:
From timcampbell.me:
“Tim Campbell is an award winning actor and singer who lives in Los Angeles, CA. He works primarily in audiobook narration and voice over and has narrated hundreds of titles spanning almost every genre. He has won or been nominated for almost every major award in the audiobook industry, including most recently a 2018 Audie, a 2019 Audie (nom), a 2019 Voice Arts Award, and several Independent Audiobook and Audiofile Magazine Earphones awards. Career highlights include Moby Dick (Brilliance Audio), Labarynth (Catherine Coulter), The Phantom of the Opera (Brilliance Audio), The Joe Dillard Legal Thrillers (Tim Campbell/Audible Studios), The Unhuman/Inspector Hobbes series (Findaway), The Mountain (HighBridge) and various short stories and novellas by Neil Gaiman, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Mary Shelley, Rudyard Kipling, HG Wells, Jules Verne, Ken Liu, Helen DeWitt, and many many others. He lived and trained in the UK and Germany, narrates as both an American and a Brit, and has studied performance diction in German, Italian, French, Spanish and Japanese, and Latin. He specializes in accents, dialects, and character work and holds three degrees in theater and music as well as graduating from the esteemed two year Great Books Colloquium of Pepperdine University.
In his other, musical life, Tim sings regularly with the LA Master Chorale, Los Angeles Opera, and in studio sessions for TV and Film. Highlights include principal ensemble in Candide at LA Opera, Courfeyrac in Les Miserables at Fresno Grand Opera, Jud in Oklahoma with Cabrillo Music Theater, and Anthony in Sweeney Todd with Pacific Opera Project and singing on the soundtrack for Star Wars IX: The Rise of Skywalker and films such as Creed 2, Venom, and many others.”
-I enjoyed listening to both of these narrators.

GENRE:
Gothic Romance; Historical Fiction; Young Adult; Medical, Mystery

SUBJECTS:
Anatomy; Medicine; Romance; Students; Detective; Mystery; Women; History; Abortion; Law

LOCATIONS:
Edinburgh, Scotland; London, England

TIME FRAME:
Paris, 1794; Edinburgh, 1818

DEDICATION:
“For anyone living ahead of their time.”

EXCERPT:
“Prologue

Paris, 1794
The square was filled with people who had woken up at dawn to see blood. They surrounded the wooden stage where the guillotine had been built, elbowing one another and pressing their bodies forward, each person trying to get as close to the action as possible. Those lucky few who had managed to get to the front of the crowd waved handkerchiefs--when the heads began to roll, they would try to dip the handkerchiefs in the blood. Souvenirs. An heirloom they could pass on to their children, and their children's children. See? I was there, they would say, unfolding the bit of cloth. I saw the Revolution. I saw the traitors lose their heads.
The morning sunlight reflected off the white stone of the courthouse. Even though his hands were bound, Antoine Lavoisier managed to fix the cuffs of his shirt. He had worn his plainest work shirt to court that morning, a simple flax-colored thing; it was what he wore in his laboratory, knowing that it might get stained with sweat or one of the hundreds of chemical solutions he kept in glass vials. His wife Marie-Anne, had threatened to throw it out a dozen times. Antoine had worn it today, hoping to prove to the judge and the braying crowd outside that he was a man of the people. For all the good it did, he might have worn silk brocade.
"Please," he had told the judge. (That cursed word had almost caught in his throat; if the circumstance hadn't been quite so dire, his nature would have made it impossible to beg.) "Please," he repeated, "France needs my work. Imagine what I can do for the nation--for the Republic--if I have more time to continue my scientific studies. I've already achieved so much in the study of oxygen. Of hydrogen, the science of combustion! At least let me return to my apartment to organize my paperwork. There are years of calculations. The possibilities for--"
The judge interrupted with a hacking, phlegmy cough. "Enough," he said. "The Republic needs neither scholars nor chemists who have stolen from the people. And the course of justice cannot be delayed further." He struck his desk with a gavel. "Guilty."”

RATING:
5 stars

STARTED READING – FINISHED READING
4/22/2023-5/13/2023 ( )

I really enjoyed this duology and honestly, I felt like the series could have easily continued on. I would have enjoyed reading more about Hazel, Jack, Dr. Ferris (swoon), Dr. Beecham, and the Companions to the Death. I loved the historical time period and reading about Hazel's determination to be a doctor in a world where women were not taken seriously enough for the job. The end read a bit slower for me than the first half, and that mixed with the disappointment of not getting another book in the series when I strongly feel that there should have been one (there are just so many doors left open!) is why I ultimately gave this four stars instead of five. ( )

After listening to the first book, I thought I should finish the duology. The novel picks up from where it ends from book one.

Hazel is very much alone as the novel begins. All of the characters in book one have moved on in their lives and become peripheral characters; and, of course, Jack is dead. The catalyst for book two is Hazel's arrest. A patient lies that Hazel broke the law and performed an abortion, leading to the death penalty for Hazel. Believing she is walking to her execution, Hazel finds a very nice carriage waiting for her. Inside waits the King of England's helper, Gasper. (I listened to the novel, so I could easily be misspelling this character's name.). The granddaughter of the King has been ill and she's the hope for the nation. The king, rumor has it, can no longer do much due to his mental decline. The king's son fails to muster any love from the people of England. As no doctor has been able to cure Charlotte, Hazel represents the last ditch effort. Most of the novel takes place in London.

Hazel meets Charlotte, the granddaughter of the king and future Queen as well as several people within the castle and the city of London. The physician to the king accepts and admires Hazel, finding her intellect and company refreshing. Charlotte and her lady in waiting (is that the right term?) take time to grow accustomed to Hazel, but they eventually realize that Hazel means them no harm and hopes to genuinely help cure Charlotte of what ails her. In addition, Hazel meets the people of a secret society.

Spoilers follow, so stop reading if you don't want to know.

I read several reviews on Goodreads, and many readers did not like this novel. Jack reappears much later, and people wanted the love story. I believe the subtitle "a love story," applies to Hazel's love of science. In fact, it's most characters' love: there's the doctor from Scotland who reappears at the end, the immortal and arrogant secret society, the royal physician, and Hazel. I liked this novel in several ways. I liked that it showed how women were treated and perceived at the time. In many ways, things haven't changed regarding healthcare that women cannot receive. Also, many men (and some women) believe that women are still second-rate citizens who exist for beauty and to be on a man's arm. They belong to someone--a parent, a master, or a husband. I liked that Hazel was not a "pushy" person; she genuinely loves science and only wants to help people and humanity. I agree with the critical comments that when Jack appears, the novel makes a turn. It seems that a "message" about women and rights needs to be made and then the author seems to think--yikes--I need to get my happy couple back together--and frantically changes the direction of the story. I honestly liked the physician at the royal court more than Jack. I can't see chemistry between Jack and Hazel. When Hazel ingests the tincture, I was surprised because it went against her character. She would have studied it and found an antidote. Last, the author implies that immortality is a terrible curse. All that's left of Madam Lavoisier (sp?) is a head. In addition, the others have trouble keeping their limbs. Immortality is terrible. Hazel would not do this to herself; she would want to help Jack by making sure these horrible side effects don't happen to him. It doesn't make sense that she would choose immortality. Overall, it wasn't bad. I didn't love this duology, but I was entertained enough to keep listening. On a scale of 1 - 10, I'd give it a 5. ( )

Solid follow-up to Anatomy, I loved this so much! Hard to talk about and not spoil anything. If Schwartz ever revisits this world, please write about Simon! ( )

This sequel to Anatomy leans into the grotesque Gothic vibes of the first book. It's got mysterious societies, grisly injuries, and a potion that can provide immortality.

When Hazel is arrested for helping a woman who is experiencing a miscarriage, she loses all hope. But then a royal servant whisks her away to provide care for Princess Charlotte, the heir of the throne of England, who's suffering a mysterious illness. At the palace, Hazel attracts all kinds of attention, but especially from the doctor whose lab she shares. Hazel finds herself in a love triangle between the very-present and attentive doctor Simon and the absent Jack. When she gets an invitation to join a secret society made up of the elite, the Companions of Death, it seems the world is opening up to her, if only she could forget her lost love Jack.

This book fell a little short of the excellence of the first one for me, with a looser plot, but I was still glad to find out the ending of Hazel and Jack's story.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the advance review copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. ( )