Best Book of December '09

What a story this was. I've tried to come up with a brief-ish description of this book but nothing I wrote sounded right to me so here's the very brief synopsis from BN.com:

The Duke of Jervaulx was brilliant and dangerous. Considered dissolute, reckless, and extravagant, he was transparently referred to as the 'D of J' in scandal sheets, where he and his various exploits featured with frequency. But sometimes the most womanizing rake can be irresistible, and even his most casual attentions fascinated the sheltered Maddy Timms, quiet daughter of a simple mathematician.

Here's what I can add: Jervaulx worked with a Quaker mathematician to create some new type of geometry proof and only met the man's daughter once, the night before the rest of the world thought him dead. What really happened is that he suffered what sounded to me like a stroke and became a man locked inside his mind, his body unable to cooperate. Maddy discovers that he is still alive, supposedly "convalescing" inside her cousin's Quaker-run sanitarium, a place that caters to the wealthy set who have family members that are being punished by God for their wicked ways. So believes Jervaulx's mother. Anyway, Maddy is the only one who realizes what's happening to Jervaulx and believes that God has given her a mission: to help Jervaulx be cured. What she didn't bet on was that she would become the only person on the planet that Jervaulx wanted by his side. Or that she would fall in love with him.

I loved this book. It was so different than all the other romances from this period that I was totally captivated. Kinsale seems to be the type of author that likes to set this time period on its ear; of all the regency/victorian period romance authors I have read, Kinsale is the most original. I first read The Shadow and the Star, which put a ninja raised on the big island in Hawaii in London in the 1800's and while it wasn't my favorite and in fact, I was rather disappointed by it, that book was interesting. I have also read Kinsale's Midsummer Moon and Seize the Fire. Neither was as enjoyable as Flowers from the Storm but they were entertaining and better than average. Flowers has been by far my favorite. I would wish every book I read was this good but then life would probably get boring without something like this one to look forward to.