I really enjoy Emma Donoghue's contemporary novels, but I'm less into the historical ones. This is a novel based on a historical divorce court case in 1864. The main trouble I had with this one is that none of the characters are very likeable. I was very interested to find in a chapter at the end that this was based on a true story, I'm all for historical fiction uncovering the gays/lesbians in history--but I feel like the author could have made the main character, Emily Faithfull, much more appealing without being untrue to the history. She describes her as having the face of a dog, for example! I mean, come on! Still it was interesting and if you like Sarah Waters, you should definitely read Emma Donoghue.