Published By: Picador
Pages: 336
Released On: 06/06/2024
She wants him. He’ll take everything.
London, 1839. With the cemeteries full and money to be made in death, tricksters Crawford and Bonnie survive on wicked schemes and ill-gotten coin. But one blistering evening, their fortunes flip. A man lies in a pool of blood at Bonnie’s feet and now she needs to disappear.
Crawford secures her a position as lady’s maid in a grand house on the Thames. As Bonnie comes to understand the family – the eccentric Mr Moncrieff, obsessively drawing mausoleums for his dead wife, and their peculiar daughter Cissie, scribbling imaginary love letters to herself – she begins to question what secrets are lying behind the house’s paper-thin walls and whether her own presence here was planned from the beginning.
Because Crawford is watching, and perhaps he is plotting his greatest trick yet . . .
*****
Thanks to NetGalley and Picador for the advanced copy of this title in return for an honest review.
Elizabeth MacNeal is proof, to me, why you don’t give up on an author straight away. When I had The Doll Factory, it took two attempts for me to read it. Initially I felt it wasn’t my thing so I shelved it. But a couple of months later I picked it up again and read it in a matter of hours and loved it. And then when Circus of Wonders came out, I once again devoured it in a day. And so her latest book was always on my wishlist, and I was so happy to receive an early digital copy of it. It sounded fabulous and the cover is gorgeous (and I definitely do judge books by their covers)!
Elizabeth is excellent at creating a sense of time and place. We immediately see ourselves in the space, we are familiar with the setting, the clothes, the smells, the sights; it feels as normal as our everyday life, even if we are almost 200 years apart.
I was initially lost as to who was whom and what they were to each other, but I think that might have been more to do with my attention span than the book itself. But I definitely got more into it once the scenes in the house started, which happen very quickly actually.
I have read a lot, a lot, of books set in Victorian England, where a young woman, usually running from something or someone, ends up as a maid or housekeeper in a large house that isn’t all it appears to be. And you’d think I’d get bored of them, because surely how many different stories can you get frrom that, and yet I haven’t. This is as good as any I’ve read. Familiarity throughout, but with a little added extra to make it different. I think for me, the main thing that stood out was it’s subplot about cemeteries. This isn’t a topic normally covered in books like this, and that’s what made it interesting for me.
I was going through a little bit of a rough time when I read this, and so it took me longer to read than it normally would, which did frustrate me but I actually think it was a good thing, as it made me concentrate and hone in on smaller details I might have missed if I’d read it at my normal speed. But by the time I got half way, I sped through it. The second half is far fuller than the first in terms of things actually happening, which meant the second half sped by.
It’s a small cast of characters. Yes you’ve got secondary and background characters, and those already deceased. But for the main part, it’s a small party, but that’s given Elizabeth a chance to really delve into them and create marvellously layered characters.
Our main protagonist of Bonnie took a while to grow on me. Yes she is a young lady in a time where it wasn’t easy for young ladies. But she felt a bit meek, juvenile, gullible, under the thumb of men. But I grew to like her and felt almost protective of her. She still had her moments where I felt her naïve and foolish, but it made her feel all the more natural.
You then have Mr Moncrieff and his daughter Cissie. A peculiar twosome. Full of secrets. But I felt them easier to warm to, even though I wasn’t sure if they were completely good or not. But I thought them very intriguing.
And we have Bonnie’s…lover, I suppose. Crawford. I didn’t care for him. I won’t go too much into him as I think a lot comes frrom the reading, but he felt slimy. Crawford felt like a creepy crawly, and I wouldn’t’ trust him as far as I could throw him. And his friend Rex, desperate to match up. Despicable, the both of them, for reasons I won’t go into. I felt almost embarrassment for them when they were on the page.
It isn’t an obvious gothic thriller. There’s no ghosts or ghouls or overly nefarious characters as such. It’s subtle. It gets under your skin. For me, it’s all about the character development and their conversations, rather than what’s hiding in the shadows. I would say it’s more gothic in terms of the setting rather than the goings on.
In hindsight I do think my favourite of hers so far has been Circus of Wonders, but that’s not to poo-poo this one at all. It was highly interesting and entertaining, and I thoroughly recommend it to those who enjoy gothic thrillers.
I did read one early review that said the ending seemed a bit sudden for the complexities of what needed wrapping up, and so I was a little concerned about that. But I didn’t find that. I thought everything ended in an appropriate way for the characters and where they were in their story.
I do love a gothic thriller. The position of Queen of the genre lies with Laura Purcell, but this is a wonderous contender.
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