There really aren’t that many books I’ve had a lukewarm reaction to; I’m usually a love it or hate it kind of gal. Having yet to read Gibbons’s previous novel, Ellen Foster, I hadn’t known what to expect before reading the book; I had, however, heard good things about both. So I was surprised, upon finishing A Virtuous Woman, to discover that I both liked and disliked the novel.

It’s a very quick novel to read; at less than 200 pages, the small book is told by Jack Stokes in a colloquial, easy to follow dialogue. The book is about Jack’s relationship with his deceased wife, Ruby Pitt Woodrow, a woman twenty years his junior. Though born to privilege, Ruby runs away with a handsome migrant worker who turns out to be a piece of work who treats her like garbage.

When that relationship fails, she works as a cleaning woman in a farmer’s house and meets Jack, a homely but good man who is instantly taken with her. Since Ruby needs someone to take care of her, Jack steps up to the plate and becomes her unlikely new love. Their relationship isn’t the romantic whirlwind that Ruby’s previous situation had included; instead, it’s a quiet, slowly grown love that’s stronger and deeper.

The thing is, though Jack conveys these ideas quite well, the book is filled with a lot of useless prattle about the neighbors and the rest of the town as well. Yes, these build on some of the characterization of our lovers, but much of it proves to simply be distracting, if not annoying. It might have been more powerful to witness Ruby’s healing and development of feelings for Jack—as well as his own for her—to have delved more deeply into her character—she is the “virtuous woman,” after all—than into so many others.

It’s a good read, no doubt; there’s a tenderness conveyed by an older man that you don’t often encounter in literature that’s very lovely to experience, even if you’re not into that kind of thing. There’s also a sweet tinge to the bitterness of loss, a beauty in the barrenness of Jack’s current life that makes the work very poignant without being too sentimental. It’s definitely the kind of romantic novel that you might want to read if you want to skip the bodice ripper and go for something more meaningful; that said, it isn’t the most amazing piece of fiction ever written, either.