A Carla Kelly heroine pledging to steer clear of the Navy is as doomed to failure as a couple planning to hook up just once to ‘get it out of our systems’, and Jerusha Langley, of A Naval Surgeon to Fight For, is no exception. After her spendthrift parents appropriate her meager dowry to buy her brother a commission, Jerusha is left without a future. Too well-bred to marry beneath her social class and too poor to tempt a man of her status, she is sent to Plymouth to live with an aunt. The aunt trains her to slide into genteel servitude as a lady’s companion – but Naval surgeon Jamie Wilson of Stonehouse hospital has other plans.

I love Carla Kelly books because they are comforting and familiar, but what holds this book back is being perhaps a little too familiar. Much of it is a retread of The Surgeon’s Lady, down to the bloody mess that awaits the clanging jetty bells. An overworked surgeon (Jamie, but Philemon Brittle in The Surgeon’s Lady) begs a woman above his social class Jerusha (Laura Taunton) to come to his hospital, first to perform compassionate tasks like reading and then, gradually, to learn medical skills. They fall in love during the work and marry despite their class differences (which never cause any conflict again). Jerusha differs from Laura in that she is poor and not a widow, but Kelly has so many poor heroines, including ones in a social class slide, and also including ones avoiding fate as a lady’s companion, that this doesn’t differentiate the book much either. Another element of predictability is that this story is set in advance of Trafalgar, and I don’t doubt that women were on the ships at the battle (Kelly is far too accurate when it comes to historical detail for that to be made up), but narrative-wise, it’s glaringly obvious from the moment Jamie Wilson makes her promise to learn to swim that Jerusha is going on the water. Chekhov’s swimming lessons, if you will.

The thing is, an overly familiar Carla Kelly is still more of something I love. If you’re someone who has read her, this book is what you want when you pick up her works. It’s cozy and friendly, and I devoured it as a stress reliever in under twenty-four hours. If you are not someone who has read her back catalogue as exhaustively as I have, A Naval Surgeon to Fight For will probably feel fresher and earn a higher score. I give it a solid B, and encourage you to let it help you relax.