The Winter Rose

Onto book two.

Ah, the bad boy and the good girl trope. Love it, all for it. India Selwyn-Jones just graduated from medical school and wants to open a women’s clinic in the East London neighborhood. Sid Malone leads the underground of East London with a Robin Hood sort of technique. A run in with the law creates an opportunity for Sid to be treated by India, and love to begin.

The Winter Rose takes place I would say about 10 years since the end of The Tea Rose. Assuming you have read The Tea Rose, there will be spoilers.

With this time skip, society is beginning to advance. Women are very slowly entering into the workforce as professionals, such as doctors, and you see that with India. Injustice and the aiding the lower class in parliament is being acknowledged by Joe. Exploration of the world is seen through Seamie. There is just a lot happening in this book.

The thing with India, is that she comes from money; you kind of have to in order to even afford going through medical school. India has had this goal of opening a women’s clinic in East London since forever and has all these valid reasons for it, especially with the advances in medicine alone. She just doesn’t have perspective, though. She has all these resources to do well and be well in the long game, but a mother living in East London has no access to any of these resources, such as proper food, and so India gets upset. It becomes a vicious circle. Then, you have Sid Malone, who has the resources for those quick fixes that the people need, and can’t see a way to the long game result; it’s just a way to survive. Once India and Sid meet, he gives her perspective and what it takes to play the survival short game, where in turn India gives him something to strive for by playing the long game.

Joe is an example of someone who taking a different route to that same result as well. India and Sid, they are about immediate action; Joe is someone who again uses resources of learning and networking to work through politics. Joe is patient and persistent, and he never lost perspective of being the little guy. He wants to be somebody that a little guy can strive toward. Joe also has Fiona, who leads the family in charitable causes, [Spoiler] such as helping to fund India’s clinic. 

I love Seamie’s C plot. To be young and have the desire to explore and see the world is such an important thing. Every person in this book has a desire to do something to impact the world, and Seamie has to fight to break out of the small world of London to go beyond what’s known. I have that same outlook, too. It’s different forms of curiosity with different ways to tackle the desire to improve what you have. By having Seamie’s plot, it also reminds me of how small the world eventually becomes as things advance.

India and Sid’s love story I think is multiple tropes, the bad boy / good girl like I said before, and the rich / poor. If it were one or the other, I think it would be more believable that they could get together, but both? That’s a lot, but hey, it plays up the drama and keeps us reading. Comparing to Fiona and Joe’s story, India and Sid’s is a different form of teamwork relationship where they had what the other needed and used their strengths to get to the goal, the other qualities and love came later.

I would recommend continuing the series. I enjoyed how everything wrapped up in The Winter Rose and looked forward to getting into The Wild Rose. If you are interested in the second book of The Tea Rose series, you can find it here.

9/10