cover image Bear No Malice

Bear No Malice

Clarissa Harwood. Pegasus, $25.95 (368p) ISBN 978-1-64313-052-1

After a promising opening, this tepid historical from Harwood (Impossible Saints) loses momentum. Early one morning in October 1907, clergyman Tom Cross wakes up in a London hotel room next to his mistress, Julia Carrington, and decides to end their scandalous relationship. Tom makes his excuses to Julia before heading off to visit the sick at London Hospital in Whitechapel. After leaving the hospital late that night, he gets into a cab and falls asleep. When he awakes, he’s on a remote country road, where he’s soon set upon by three men and left unconscious. He’s rescued by siblings Miranda and Simon Thorne, who take him into their Surrey cottage and nurse him back to health. Tom conceals his true identity from them, even as he finds himself increasingly attracted to Miranda, an aspiring artist. He feels even more conflicted when he learns that she has had an aversion to men of the cloth since having a mysterious and unpleasant experience with one when she was younger. Harwood gradually pulls back the curtain on Tom’s own past, which may hold the answer to the mystery of why he was assaulted. Routine plotting and character development make it hard for readers to care much about the goings-on. (Jan.)