The Imperative of Desire (Passing Rites #1)

Elena Graf

Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars
4.50 · 2 ratings · 490 pages · Published: 02 Apr 2021
The Imperative of Desire by Elena Graf
In the waning years of Queen Victoria’s reign, a brilliant daughter is born to an aristocratic, military family in Prussia. A quirk of inheritance law allows Margarethe von Stahle to inherit both her grandmother’s and father’s noble titles. Her elders collaborate to educate her to take on her future duties, which include administering her family estates and supporting an order of nuns.
Margarethe’s curiosity and precocity delight and perplex her teachers as they try to mold her. Her father trains her with his military cadets. A retired opera singer, now the choir mistress of the convent, teaches her how to sing. Her grandaunt, headmistress of the convent school, educates her in philosophy and classics. At an early age, Margarethe heads to Oxford to follow in her father’s footsteps. Gifted with both musical and intellectual talents, she must choose between singing and service. Raised to take her duty and noblesse oblige seriously, she decides to study medicine and becomes one of a handful of female surgeons in 1920s Germany.
Being the heir means she needs children to inherit her titles. She reluctantly marries, despite preferring her own sex, but that doesn’t stop her from finding solace in the arms of women. She trains under the best surgeons in Germany and England and rises to prominence as London’s infamous “Lady Doctor.” But duty finally demands that she return to her homeland and take the reins of the family fortunes.

The Imperative of Desire, the first volume in The Passing Rites Series, takes Margarethe from La Belle Époque, through a world war, a revolution that outlawed the German nobility, the roaring twenties, to the decadent demimonde of Weimar Berlin. This coming-of-age story spans one of the most tumultuous periods of history, a time that changed women’s lives forever.
Amazon Other stores
As an Amazon Associate thebooknaut.com earns from qualifying purchases

Tagged as:

    romance tags

    crime tags

    literary-fiction tags

    historical-fiction tags

    fantasy tags

    sci-fi tags

    action-adventure tags

    thriller tags

    horror tags

    Collections/Custom tags

    Report duplicate books, missing or wrong information

    The 'Passing Rites' series

    4.70 · 10 ratings
    book · historical · historical-fiction · fiction · wlw · lgbtq · violent-conflict · adult · 20th-century · romantic-love · drama · war · friends-to-lovers · slow-burn · ww2 · medical · dark · age-gap
    Passing Rites reading order and complete book list  ❯

    Reviews

    The Imperative of Desire by Elena Graf

    Report duplicate books, missing or wrong information