Book review: Things We Do For Love and Science by Ruth Kramer

This feel-good debut from author Ruth Kramer offers an original, surprising storyline, with some great twists. The deeply emotional, heart-warming story is all you could hope for from an English Country House Romance.

Everything you could want from an English Country House Romance

We have Gabriel, a handsome, skint earl with a beautiful house and a broken engagement behind him, grieving his recently deceased father. And then we have flame-haired geneticist, Dr Cordelia Wright, who takes logic to extremes – even in her relationships – feeling she needs to be detached to heal from past hurts. Plus a cute dog, supportive siblings, a sassy best friend and nightmare boss.

What more could you want?

Maybe some surprises to lift this book into the realm of a darn good read you’d actually recommend to your friends? This book has this in spades!

As Cordelia offers to sit for a portrait for artist Gabriel, the friendship between them grows. But no matter how logical and detached Cordelia tries to be, a conflagration will ensue. When she suggests a plan that will bind them together for ever, but not in the conventional sense, how can they not get burned?

Ruth Kramer conveys the longing, the heartbreak, those punches in the gut, with skill. Her characters’ emotions are laid bare, their passion expressed not only through their physical attraction but through her deft exposure of their hearts beating in pain when misunderstandings and different expectations come between them.

I am very much looking forward to reading more from Ruth. And on this note, I should come clean – Ruth and I have become writing buddies since we met at the Romantic Novelists’ Association conference back in 2023. Now, you might think it strange that there are so many parallels between my debut, Summer at Tillingford Hall and hers, Things We Do For Love and Science, at least in the original scene-setting and some details (such as the fact that both heroes compare their lovers to Pre-Raphaelite stunners!) but we had in fact both written those books before we met! I think it’s just a case of ‘great minds think alike’, but the two books when you get into them are honestly completely different! Mine’s ‘closed door’ for starters (although I have to say Ruth’s bedroom scenes are beautifully written, tastefully done and not gratuitous) and mine’s a comedy whereas Ruth’s, while it has its light-hearted moments, is more serious. If you like one, you’ll definitely like the other! Perhaps we can persuade Amazon to do a two-for-one offer?