The Rose of Sebastopol by Katharine McMahon

Pub. Date: February 2010
Publisher: Penguin Group (USA)
Paperback, 416pp
ISBN: 9780425232224
Marielle Lingwood is a young woman living in Victorian London in 1854 Her cousin Rosa Barr (which she is really good friends with) has left for the battle grounds of the Crimean War in Russia, in the footsteps of Florence Nightingale. Rosa Barr - young, headstrong and beautiful - travels to Balaklava, determined to save as many of the wounded as she can.

Marielle's fiancee, the surgeon Henry Thewell also travels to the war zone of Crimea to volunteer. But as many people during that time( diseases as cholera and tubercolosis where very common) he fall is and is sent for recovery to Italy.
Marielle hears of his illnes and travels to her fiancee in Italy, where she hears that Rosa is missing, no one has heard of her again. She starts the search for Rosa, which starts in London and ends in the war scattered Crimea.
She gets help of Rosa's stepbrother. She discovers a lot about Rosa during her journey, but if she will be in time to find her back..?

What I liked about The Rose of Sebastopol was the style of writing. In short and greatly described chapters the readers gets to know more about Marielle, Rosa and Henry. The chapters switch in time,and go from London to Crimea. A bit fuzzy is the issue of the Crimean war. I personally never heard of this war and which countries where involved, so that was a bit harder to understand.
The story itself was good. It wasn't the most exciting one to be honest, especially at the end I had my thoughts about it, I will not fold this out here, because then I would leak a huge spoiler.
Overall a very interesting historical novel, very good written and romantic, and a lovely cover too as a cherry on top!