I have a lot of sympathy for these characters not just because of the way they rise above their circumstances but also because as is true of many of us, their ailments are usually of the heart. They themselves can usually manage by accepting help (accepting help is hard for even the most mobile person); sometimes their limitation has to do with letting others know of their vulnerabilities. And often their liberation comes from believing in themselves (again, something we all have trouble doing from time to time).

The heroine is equally disabled because of the emotional and physical abuse of her father. She is terrified of her husband (actually she is terrified of everyone and everything) for the first half of the book, but as she begins to realize that she is safe, slowly she falls in love and makes friends. It’s a lovely book, with a believable HEA. I recommend it highly, and I think it got a DIK review on this site.

Virginia DeMarce: Ridley, I am sorry that my comment angered you.

How did you read my comment and come away with the idea you’d angered me?

Head in the game, kid. The book is what infuriated me, not you or anyone who liked it.

Although, every time someone recommends The Morning Side of Dawn as anything but a patronizing pile of crap, that might anger me a bit. Though I’m angrier at authors and society for making it seem like a story like that is a healthy representation of disability than with able bodied readers who don’t know any better liking the “beauty and the beast” theme. Everyone’s heart being in the right place doesn’t make that awful book any less offensive, though.

Ridley:
Funny that you say that. I found that book infuriating. In true Balogh fashion, once again a character gains empowerment and respect as he/she becomes less disabled. It’s yet another example of people equating disability with helplessness and victimhood. Pisses me off. HEA and disability are not mutually exclusive.Also, despite what the OP says, Phantom Waltz isn’t about a disabled heroine. That book is 100% pure ableist fantasy.

Ridley, I generally agree with you on the characters with disabilities, but “Dancing With Clara” worked for me. I think this was because I believed the situation was real. I grew up in a country where for my condition doctors recommended restricting physical activity well before any pain or disability started, and sometimes putting children in special boarding schools on strict bed rest. This actually produced more severely crippled people than if they were left to their own devices. I escaped that because my parents were poor and overworked, and so were unable to spend much time or money on something that was not an immediate problem. I still ended up with a disability, but I had 12 healthy years after my initial diagnosis, and I am better off than some of the kids who went through the then-standard treatment. So I read “Dancing with Clara” as an instance of that – people, maybe with the best intentions, giving very poor advice to someone who didn’t have a severe physical problem, and an outsider helping her get better.

I have read Dancing with Clara. As I recall, I didn’t actually see it as a book about someone who was physically disabled, but had been disabled psychologically by another. I saw it as Clara learning to think and fend for herself. I wouldn’t put it in the same category as my own mistake with a blind heroine. Clara’s recovery was implicit, I thought, from the beginning. She was sickly, not crippled, wasn’t she?