virgoreader

★★★★★

Amid kidnapping attempts on Phoebe, the blind younger sister of a duke, she's put under the protection of Sir Grouchy as bodyguard.

TW: mention of rape, it happened years earlier and is not described, only referenced

Do you ever read a book and it doesn't quite work for you... but then on re-read you LOVE it? That's what happened to me with Dearest Rogue, a historical bodyguard romance.

This book had many sensitive topics to handle and does them so well: a heroine who has been going blind and is now completely blind; a hero living with a permanent injury to his leg, causing a loss of mobility and constant discomfort and pain; a sister who's mentally challenged; the topic of assault.

I thought the way Phoebe's blindness was discussed was perfect. She has known for years she is going blind, and sent away the doctors who Maximus kept summoning to try treatments on her. And yet when she realizes that the last bit of her vision is gone (as previously she could make out images on sunny days), she's devastated in a very realistic and heartbreaking way: 

Phoebe had expected this to happen one day. 

Of course she had. Her vision had been getting steadily worse for years. Only a mental incompetent wouldn’t realize where it was leading. 

Except… it was one thing for her mind to understand, but it was entirely different for her heart to comprehend. Foolish, feckless thing. Apparently it had held out hope for a miracle.

Something talked about frequently is Phoebe's desire for independence. She's 21 and never got to have a Season and rarely gets to experience life as her sister did when Hero was her age. Maximus loves her so much, but is stifling her with overprotectiveness and not letting her live and experience life. There was a passage where she thinks about the fact that Trevillion is always around her, usually unchaperoned; that they touch hand to arm skin on skin... and that wouldn't be acceptable normally but: Blindness had neutered her in the eyes of the world. That was like a knife twist in the gut for me.

Through the book Phoebe learns to assert her independence with various people until finally confronting her brother. 

“It’s not my blindness that cripples me, it’s everyone else deciding I can’t live because of my blindness. If I stumble, if I run into things and fall and hurt myself it’s because I can and I’m free to do so, Maximus. Because without that freedom I’m just a dull, chained thing and I won’t be that woman anymore."

This just all felt so great to me... Phoebe was such a real, multidimensional character. She had basic wants, needs, desires, concerns - she wanted to be a woman, a mother, a wife. She struggle to gain and keep some independence and to navigate the world as a blind woman.

Spoilers below

Trevillion has an older sister named Dolly, who was born disabled. There's some indication her mother had a hard time giving birth to her, so maybe oxygen was cut off from her at birth as she appears to be slow and have a childlike mental state. She was raped when she was 26 and gave birth to Agnes. The man who raped her was the second son of a baron, and got her to come with him by buying her a piece of candy. 

This was so disgusting and terrifying, but I actually liked that the author didn't dwell on it too much as it was more than a decade earlier. It's an important part of the story for Trevillion's character development but they don't need to rehash the trauma with Dolly. The thing that I liked about this was that, as someone who has a sister who's mentally challenged, I felt the family relationships were portrayed well - although it wasn't a main focus in the story. 

When Mr. Trevillion talks to Phoebe he says how people in the village said it would have been a blessing if she had died in childbirth, and he would never think that, as he loves his daughter how she is. My sister was born in 1995 and we still had people say that to us over the years. Trevillion feeling responsibility for his sister is something I can relate with, because I feel that responsibility for my own sister and if anything were to happen to her - if she was to get lost, or get hurt, or if someone was simply mean to her - it would kill me. 

This really wasn't a huge part of the story but I think it stuck out to me because we rarely see mentally challenged characters in historical romance (I can only think of one - The Virgin Who Ruined Lord Gray), and again, I like the way it was written.