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The Butcher's Hook
Georgian London. Summer 1763.
Anne Jaccob is coming of age, the daughter of a wealthy merchant. When she is taken advantage of by her tutor — a great friend of her father’s — and is set up to marry a squeamish snob named Simeon Onions, she begins to realize just how powerless she is in Georgian society. Anne is watchful, cunning, and bored.
Her saviour appears in the form of Fub, the butcher’s boy. Their romance is both a great spur and an excitement. Anne knows she is doomed to a loveless marriage to Onions and she is determined to escape with Fub and be his mistress. But will Fub ultimately be her salvation or damnation? And how far will she go to get what she wants?
Dark and sweeping, The Butcher’s Hook is a richly textured debut featuring one of the most memorable characters in fiction.
Anne Jaccob is coming of age, the daughter of a wealthy merchant. When she is taken advantage of by her tutor — a great friend of her father’s — and is set up to marry a squeamish snob named Simeon Onions, she begins to realize just how powerless she is in Georgian society. Anne is watchful, cunning, and bored.
Her saviour appears in the form of Fub, the butcher’s boy. Their romance is both a great spur and an excitement. Anne knows she is doomed to a loveless marriage to Onions and she is determined to escape with Fub and be his mistress. But will Fub ultimately be her salvation or damnation? And how far will she go to get what she wants?
Dark and sweeping, The Butcher’s Hook is a richly textured debut featuring one of the most memorable characters in fiction.
241 pages, Paperback
First published March 5, 2016
99 people are currently reading
6350 people want to read
About the author
Janet Ellis
13 books52 followersJanet Ellis trained as an actress at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama. She is best known for presenting Blue Peter and contributes to numerous radio and TV programmes.
A graduate of the Curtis Brown creative writing course, The Butcher’s Hook is her first novel, and she is currently working on her next.
In 2016 Janet was awarded an MBE for services to charities and theatre.
A graduate of the Curtis Brown creative writing course, The Butcher’s Hook is her first novel, and she is currently working on her next.
In 2016 Janet was awarded an MBE for services to charities and theatre.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 459 reviews
December 14, 2016
How does one become a psychopath? Is it nature or nurture? Anne Jaccob's life journey was bumpy. Her idyllic family life changed when her three year old brother died. She felt empty, devoid of feelings. Perhaps her depressed state occurred when her father stated that Anne and her mother were not enough. He needed a son. His overly critical comments were hard to bear. Anne's fragile mother had been worn down by numerous miscarriages. Finally, a baby girl was born but was taking up time formerly spent with Anne.
In Georgian England, 1763, women were chattel. Anne's father had arranged a marriage between Anne and a Mr. Onions. Mr. Onions felt that Anne was of good breeding stock. Mr. Jaccob needed him to invest in his business. Anne was told that Onions, a fop twice her age, was an excellent choice for a husband.
The middle class Jaccob family received weekly meat deliveries from Levener Butcher Shop. In her mother's absence, Anne encountered the butcher's apprentice, Fub, while examining the delivery. So started an all consuming love that Anne developed for Fub.
Anne had a history of strange behaviors. A treasure box in her room contained a dead mouse and a dead spider. She was excited to visit Levener's shop and observe an animal being placed on a butcher's hook, gutted and dismembered. Noticing that the Jaccob family servants had more freedom than she, Anne embarked on a dangerous journey to the dark side. She would be the architect of her destiny.
"The Butcher's Hook" by Janet Ellis is a macabre tome with a different type of heroine. Anne was distant, loving, vengeful and obsessive. Her behavior slowly became more and more aberrant with no regard for the consequences of her actions.
A well crafted first novel.
Thank you Pegasus Books and Net Galley for the opportunity to read and review "The Butcher's Hook".
In Georgian England, 1763, women were chattel. Anne's father had arranged a marriage between Anne and a Mr. Onions. Mr. Onions felt that Anne was of good breeding stock. Mr. Jaccob needed him to invest in his business. Anne was told that Onions, a fop twice her age, was an excellent choice for a husband.
The middle class Jaccob family received weekly meat deliveries from Levener Butcher Shop. In her mother's absence, Anne encountered the butcher's apprentice, Fub, while examining the delivery. So started an all consuming love that Anne developed for Fub.
Anne had a history of strange behaviors. A treasure box in her room contained a dead mouse and a dead spider. She was excited to visit Levener's shop and observe an animal being placed on a butcher's hook, gutted and dismembered. Noticing that the Jaccob family servants had more freedom than she, Anne embarked on a dangerous journey to the dark side. She would be the architect of her destiny.
"The Butcher's Hook" by Janet Ellis is a macabre tome with a different type of heroine. Anne was distant, loving, vengeful and obsessive. Her behavior slowly became more and more aberrant with no regard for the consequences of her actions.
A well crafted first novel.
Thank you Pegasus Books and Net Galley for the opportunity to read and review "The Butcher's Hook".
June 22, 2016
This is certainly one of the better books I've read this year. I didn't know what to expect from "The Butcher's Hook"; what got me interested in it was all the praise it has received and then that gorgeous cover!
This novel combines the beautiful with the macabre. It takes place in London in the 1700s, and the protagonist Anne is a small girl of about 14 who tells her own story. Because of this narrator, the story is very easy to follow, however as things progress we realize that Anne is not your typical kind of 14-year-old.
Being a lover of the macabre and obscure, this novel appealed to me a lot. But not only the macabre parts satisfied me, also the innocent beginning and the beautiful prose combined with a childish tone of voice got me hooked (so to speak). I kind of read this as a modern gothic novel and I loved it. And if this description alone doesn't convince you to read it, then do just for the sake of looking at its gorgeous cover, inside pages and the spine. I promise you you're in for quite a ride :)
This novel combines the beautiful with the macabre. It takes place in London in the 1700s, and the protagonist Anne is a small girl of about 14 who tells her own story. Because of this narrator, the story is very easy to follow, however as things progress we realize that Anne is not your typical kind of 14-year-old.
Being a lover of the macabre and obscure, this novel appealed to me a lot. But not only the macabre parts satisfied me, also the innocent beginning and the beautiful prose combined with a childish tone of voice got me hooked (so to speak). I kind of read this as a modern gothic novel and I loved it. And if this description alone doesn't convince you to read it, then do just for the sake of looking at its gorgeous cover, inside pages and the spine. I promise you you're in for quite a ride :)
December 9, 2018
I can't remember the last time I read a story set in the mid 1700's and a one that captured the era so perfectly. I was very impressed with Janet Ellis' debut novel "The Butcher's Hook", she writes of the Georgian era with such immense descriptive detail, you literally step back in time with perfect clarity and vividness.
It did take me a little time to adjust to the writing style that befitted the 1700's and some of the scenes were quite explicit but generally this is a fabulous gothic style novel with a hint of the macabre and I thoroughly enjoyed reading the story through the eyes of the main character, nineteen year old Anne, who really is one twisted and wicked young lady.
The author is an ex Blue Peter presenter who has turned her hand very successfully to writing this, her first novel. I understand she is currently writing another and I do hope it's a follow up to Anne's journey in life, I really would like to know who she encounters next and exactly how she plans to despatch of them when she suspects they are standing in her way.
A great debut, excellent author, highly recommend!
4 stars
It did take me a little time to adjust to the writing style that befitted the 1700's and some of the scenes were quite explicit but generally this is a fabulous gothic style novel with a hint of the macabre and I thoroughly enjoyed reading the story through the eyes of the main character, nineteen year old Anne, who really is one twisted and wicked young lady.
The author is an ex Blue Peter presenter who has turned her hand very successfully to writing this, her first novel. I understand she is currently writing another and I do hope it's a follow up to Anne's journey in life, I really would like to know who she encounters next and exactly how she plans to despatch of them when she suspects they are standing in her way.
A great debut, excellent author, highly recommend!
4 stars
February 11, 2017
If you wish to read a historical-fiction novel with a wicked main character, look not further. The Butcher’s Hook tells a story that is delightfully twisted and wrong, but so very engaging.
Anne Jacobs is a 19-year-old girl coming from a well-off family, but who lives in a very oppressive household. Her father is an unsympathetic man and wishes she’d rather be born a boy, and her mother is a meek, absent woman who suffered through a series of miscarriages. Having no friends or any form of distracting, Anne’s small world is completely changed by meeting Fub (Frederick), the butcher’s boy.
Anne immediately falls head over heels with him, but the situation get complicated when her father introduces her to her future husband, the vain and arrogant Mr. Onions. But suitor or not, Anne is determinate not to let this man – or any men! – stand in the way of her true love for Fub, and she doesn’t mind spilling a little blood in order to do so.
Anne is a fascinating yet wretched woman. She’s been raised in a bleak home and never experienced any healthy social interactions, so her world-views and social skills are poor and limited. Anne gets infatuated with any new person that she meets, but she becomes uncompromising and cruel if they don’t behave like she thinks they should.
Anne as a main character reminded me of the nameless woman in “The Yellow Wallpaper”. That woman slowly descends into madness due to her husband keeping her depressed and locked up from the outside world, and a similar thing happens to Anne, although here it Anne’s father who keeps her isolated. The consequences of this behaviour, however, are in both cases catastrophic.
The main thing about the author's writing style is how visualizing it is, how active. In Anne’s house there are always servants whispering, the baby is always crying, her father has a booming voice. And it’s not just constant human activity: doors always creak, streets buzzle, you can even ‘hear’ the cut of the knives in the butcher’s shop.
It’s a writing quality that I haven’t come across before, or maybe it stands out because Anne is so quiet. Her inner monologue is just as alive as the outside world, but because she isn’t heard there, her thoughts sound so loud. This writing style is a great reflection of the social restrictions placed on women in the 18th century, but things gets scary when Anne starts to plan her first murder. Her quiet thoughts suddenly begin to sound very threatening.
Set in the Georgian era, the descriptions of the dirty streets of London are well written, and the contrast between Anne’s cold upper-class family and the hearty lower class is nicely done. It was too bad that, despite their importance to the story, we get to know so little of Mr. Onions and Fub, and the plot of the book was a bit thin and predictable.
Overall though, this macabre historical-fiction debut is written with a lot of wit and energy, and Anne Jacobs is a fascinating heroine, vile but vulnerable, who is willing to go great lengths to get what she wants. I can’t wait to read more of Ellis in the future.
Anne Jacobs is a 19-year-old girl coming from a well-off family, but who lives in a very oppressive household. Her father is an unsympathetic man and wishes she’d rather be born a boy, and her mother is a meek, absent woman who suffered through a series of miscarriages. Having no friends or any form of distracting, Anne’s small world is completely changed by meeting Fub (Frederick), the butcher’s boy.
Anne immediately falls head over heels with him, but the situation get complicated when her father introduces her to her future husband, the vain and arrogant Mr. Onions. But suitor or not, Anne is determinate not to let this man – or any men! – stand in the way of her true love for Fub, and she doesn’t mind spilling a little blood in order to do so.
Anne is a fascinating yet wretched woman. She’s been raised in a bleak home and never experienced any healthy social interactions, so her world-views and social skills are poor and limited. Anne gets infatuated with any new person that she meets, but she becomes uncompromising and cruel if they don’t behave like she thinks they should.
Anne as a main character reminded me of the nameless woman in “The Yellow Wallpaper”. That woman slowly descends into madness due to her husband keeping her depressed and locked up from the outside world, and a similar thing happens to Anne, although here it Anne’s father who keeps her isolated. The consequences of this behaviour, however, are in both cases catastrophic.
The main thing about the author's writing style is how visualizing it is, how active. In Anne’s house there are always servants whispering, the baby is always crying, her father has a booming voice. And it’s not just constant human activity: doors always creak, streets buzzle, you can even ‘hear’ the cut of the knives in the butcher’s shop.
It’s a writing quality that I haven’t come across before, or maybe it stands out because Anne is so quiet. Her inner monologue is just as alive as the outside world, but because she isn’t heard there, her thoughts sound so loud. This writing style is a great reflection of the social restrictions placed on women in the 18th century, but things gets scary when Anne starts to plan her first murder. Her quiet thoughts suddenly begin to sound very threatening.
Set in the Georgian era, the descriptions of the dirty streets of London are well written, and the contrast between Anne’s cold upper-class family and the hearty lower class is nicely done. It was too bad that, despite their importance to the story, we get to know so little of Mr. Onions and Fub, and the plot of the book was a bit thin and predictable.
Overall though, this macabre historical-fiction debut is written with a lot of wit and energy, and Anne Jacobs is a fascinating heroine, vile but vulnerable, who is willing to go great lengths to get what she wants. I can’t wait to read more of Ellis in the future.
December 13, 2015
I was intrigued to read this debut historical novel by Janet Ellis, set in 1763 London. Anne Jacob is a young lady of nineteen when we meet her; living an isolated life with her distant father and a careworn mother, who has experienced a ‘string of small deaths’ in her desire to give her husband the son he craves. When we begin this novel, Anne’s mother has just given birth to a daughter. This is to be celebrated, as the baby lives, but it soon becomes obvious that the members of the household – including Anne – are still mourning the little boy who died previously. Anne is resentful of her new sister being born, of the time her mother spends in confinement and of her own, confined and limited life.
The convention is, of course, that Anne will marry. After a rather disastrous experience with a friend of her father’s, Anne’s own romantic feelings are awoken by a less than suitable figure – Fub, the butcher’s boy. However, her father is keen for her to marry to man of his choice, the foppish Mr Onions.
This is very much a novel of two halves and, although the second half of the book really does turn into a bawdy romp, I have to say that I enjoyed the build up at the beginning much more. Anne as a repressed, confused young woman, who fails to fit in when she meets the daughter of one of her father’s business acquaintances, was far more believable to me. She is unsure of what behaviour is acceptable with her peers, nervous about meeting her and obviously keen to be instantly besotted with anyone who shows her the slightest interest, or who enters her quiet and lonely world.
Her immediate attraction to young Fub is understandable, but the path it sets her on seems almost unbelievably reckless. Still, the story carries you along, with Anne growing in confidence about rejecting the fate outlined for her and choosing her own course in life. With a good sense of the period and interesting characters, I enjoyed the fact that this historical novel is set firmly in Georgian London and that the author rejected the current, far over-used, literary device of a dual time line. Generally, a very good debut novel, which promises a new, and successful, career for Ms Ellis.
The convention is, of course, that Anne will marry. After a rather disastrous experience with a friend of her father’s, Anne’s own romantic feelings are awoken by a less than suitable figure – Fub, the butcher’s boy. However, her father is keen for her to marry to man of his choice, the foppish Mr Onions.
This is very much a novel of two halves and, although the second half of the book really does turn into a bawdy romp, I have to say that I enjoyed the build up at the beginning much more. Anne as a repressed, confused young woman, who fails to fit in when she meets the daughter of one of her father’s business acquaintances, was far more believable to me. She is unsure of what behaviour is acceptable with her peers, nervous about meeting her and obviously keen to be instantly besotted with anyone who shows her the slightest interest, or who enters her quiet and lonely world.
Her immediate attraction to young Fub is understandable, but the path it sets her on seems almost unbelievably reckless. Still, the story carries you along, with Anne growing in confidence about rejecting the fate outlined for her and choosing her own course in life. With a good sense of the period and interesting characters, I enjoyed the fact that this historical novel is set firmly in Georgian London and that the author rejected the current, far over-used, literary device of a dual time line. Generally, a very good debut novel, which promises a new, and successful, career for Ms Ellis.
August 22, 2016
Normally I wouldn't pick up historical fiction (although I've been doing way more of that this year), but The Butcher's Hook is a historical fiction novel for those of us with darker, seedier tastes. Set in the Georgian era, as opposed to the more commonly written-about Victorian period, we are greeted with a dirtier, less refined picture of London where even the upper-class aren't as respectable as they would have us believe.
The Butcher's Hook follows 19 year old Anne Jacob, a girl who comes from a well-off family but has a less than satisfactory home life. Her mother is a ghost of a person, loving but often absent, and her father is boorish and unsympathetic. Her young brother died many years before, and Anne cannot feel the same way towards her newly-born sister. She is also being primed to marry a horrible, foppish man who she doesn't love. However, when she meets Fub, the butcher's boy, and starts a secret relationship with him, things become equal parts better and worse.
Anne is a fascinating yet despicable character. While I sympathised with her for her depressing home life, and felt bad about her isolated world and the things that had happened to her in the past, I also found her to be delightfully twisted and unsympathetic. She is conniving and ruthless, and I found it very refreshing to see this kind of heroine in a historical novel. I also enjoyed the character of Fub, the butcher's boy - he felt completely believable to me, particularly nearer the end, and at times I felt more sorry for him than for Anne.
The depiction of London is a lot different to how I usually see it writen in historical settings - the streets are thick with mud and grime, the people who live on the streets and otherwise are full of character and personality, and all-in-all even Anne's higher status did not seem to help her out of the more slummy areas. I thought Janet Ellis's writing was very good too - given the fact that this is her first novel, I found her writing to be surprisingly accomplished and without tried-and-tested imagery. However, I must admit that I found it a little difficult to get into at first, as the writing style is written more so like a classic novel would be, and so it can be a little slow at first before you are truly immersed into the story.
I had some issues with the pacing of the book, and most of the action didn't happen until the third part, but overall I really enjoyed this read and it definitely lived up to expectations.
The Butcher's Hook follows 19 year old Anne Jacob, a girl who comes from a well-off family but has a less than satisfactory home life. Her mother is a ghost of a person, loving but often absent, and her father is boorish and unsympathetic. Her young brother died many years before, and Anne cannot feel the same way towards her newly-born sister. She is also being primed to marry a horrible, foppish man who she doesn't love. However, when she meets Fub, the butcher's boy, and starts a secret relationship with him, things become equal parts better and worse.
Anne is a fascinating yet despicable character. While I sympathised with her for her depressing home life, and felt bad about her isolated world and the things that had happened to her in the past, I also found her to be delightfully twisted and unsympathetic. She is conniving and ruthless, and I found it very refreshing to see this kind of heroine in a historical novel. I also enjoyed the character of Fub, the butcher's boy - he felt completely believable to me, particularly nearer the end, and at times I felt more sorry for him than for Anne.
The depiction of London is a lot different to how I usually see it writen in historical settings - the streets are thick with mud and grime, the people who live on the streets and otherwise are full of character and personality, and all-in-all even Anne's higher status did not seem to help her out of the more slummy areas. I thought Janet Ellis's writing was very good too - given the fact that this is her first novel, I found her writing to be surprisingly accomplished and without tried-and-tested imagery. However, I must admit that I found it a little difficult to get into at first, as the writing style is written more so like a classic novel would be, and so it can be a little slow at first before you are truly immersed into the story.
I had some issues with the pacing of the book, and most of the action didn't happen until the third part, but overall I really enjoyed this read and it definitely lived up to expectations.
February 27, 2017
One of my favorite reads of the year.
December 14, 2016
A gritty and gruesome novel that had me completely gripped from the offset.
Set in Victorian London, we follow young Anne Jaccob as she defies the wishes of her family; they have arranged a marriage for her but Anne can't think of anything worse than being the wife of Simeon Onions. This arrangement becomes more of a struggle as Anne discovers she is falling for the butchers boy, Fub. Obsessed with the idea of leaving her home and running away with Fub, Anne finds herself in some very sticky situations - how far is she willing to go in the name of love?
This novel took some very dark and nasty turns but I found myself enthralled by the character of Anne - she was pretty grisly! I would highly recommend to all but would say that there are some pretty graphic descriptions of torturous things so it might not be for everyone.
Set in Victorian London, we follow young Anne Jaccob as she defies the wishes of her family; they have arranged a marriage for her but Anne can't think of anything worse than being the wife of Simeon Onions. This arrangement becomes more of a struggle as Anne discovers she is falling for the butchers boy, Fub. Obsessed with the idea of leaving her home and running away with Fub, Anne finds herself in some very sticky situations - how far is she willing to go in the name of love?
This novel took some very dark and nasty turns but I found myself enthralled by the character of Anne - she was pretty grisly! I would highly recommend to all but would say that there are some pretty graphic descriptions of torturous things so it might not be for everyone.
September 3, 2016
This novel has quite the body count. Normally I hate hiding ARC reviews behind spoiler-walls, but it’s got to be done in this case….
I received an ARC of The Butcher’s Hook for free from House of Anansi Press in return for an honest review. And I will be honest: this book squicked me out a bit. I loves me the free books, though, and if you want me to talk about how much your book squicked me out, get in touch!
Janet Ellis serves up what seems, at first, to be a fairly standard piece of historical fiction. Anne Jaccob doesn’t want to get married—but since this is London in 1763, she gets little say in the matter. She tries to distract herself from the unwanted suit by going after the butcher’s boy, gradually developing her coquettish skills and becoming more comfortable with the desires she feels when she is around the down-to-earth young Fub. Just when you think you’ve got this thing figured out, there is a twist that sends Anne off on an entirely different trajectory. It’s not what you think … but it walks that strange line between hilarious and macabre.
The beginning is lovely. Ellis develops Anne’s character quickly: we see how she is bright and eager for knowledge, even when every young. Unfortunately, Anne discovers the hard way that her sex means this thirst for knowledge won’t always be celebrated, let alone satisfied. The scene between her and Dr Edwards is very awkward and uncomfortable, to be sure. However I was actually more moved by Anne’s falling out with Keziah. This, to me, marked the moment that Anne realizes she is different, not just from men but from other women; it foreshadows her always being alone. Anne’s lack of companionship throughout her early adolescence, her lack of confidants, seems to play a big role in shaping her prior to her infatuation with Fub.
I also like how Ellis explores Anne’s nascent sexuality. Depictions of female masturbation are too few in fiction, so it’s cool that Ellis works it into a book that is all about repressed sexuality. After the meet-cute with Fub, an overwhelmed Anne retreats to her room. Ellis briefly and tastefully—but clearly—describes what’s going on, making it clear that Anne is definitely in tune with her body and aware of how to pleasure herself. This scene, almost a footnote at the end of a chapter, is in some ways much more transgressive than either the sex or the slaughter that follows.
Because, yeah. Anne straight-up murders a guy. Then a boy. Then a girl her own age.
Watching as Anne plots the murder of Dr Edwards is fascinating. Ellis conveys the thrill that Anne receives from finally having a measure of power: she can do something, can take action, to fix something she perceives as having gone wrong in her life. She harnesses the only leverage that she has (her femininity and youthful attractiveness) and lures Edwards into a secluded spot. The clinical way that she goes about killing him, and his very calm reaction to the act, almost tilts the book towards melodrama. Almost.
What actually tilts the book is what happens next, when Anne discovers a boy who went to Dr Edwards for some tutoring is suspicious and might tip the police off about her. I love this trope (I can’t find its page on TVTropes, if one exists), where in order to cover up your murder you have to kill someone else … and then the whole thing just snowballs. But if her first murder reveals Anne’s cold-bloodedness, this murder shows her utter lack of conscience. We could have attributed her offing Dr Edwards, in part, to his abuse of her when she was younger. The boy, aside from threatening to spill his guts, was innocent. And Anne’s ability to act so calmly, both when talking to Dr Edwards’ daughter and when talking to the vicar about the boy, demonstrates her deeply amoral character.
The “Jane Austen meets Gone Girl” comparison on the back of the book makes sense now. I kind of ignored it before I read the book, because I haven’t read Gone Girl and have no interest in it. That being said, I might characterize this more as “Emily Brontë meets Gone Girl,” because I think that Brontë could very well have written Gone Girl if she were alive today. Ellis is essentially replacing the Gothic horror aspect of Wuthering Heights with a no-less-chilling more modern approach to the psychopath. Although I was looking forward more to a modern deconstruction of the matchmaking of that era, instead I got to watch Anne get discounted and ignored as a result of her sex and perceived fragility. She outright confesses to Fub, at least twice, and he laughs in her face.
That ending though.
Dr Edwards’ death is revenge; the boy’s is expedience. What is Margaret’s? Malice. Plain and simple. Anne understands she cannot ever have Fub, cannot run away with him much as she might like to … but if she can’t have Fub, then she resolves that Margaret won’t have him either. Again we see the premeditation, the careful planning and guile and flattery that she uses to put her victim at ease. This time, however, there is even more cruelty. Unlike Edwards, who—while not deserving to be murdered—did wrong Anne grievously, Margaret has done nothing wrong at all. Yet Anne brutalizes her, leaves her broken and bloody to die in a fire—which, by the way, consumes and destroys the butcher’s livelihood.
It’s this collateral damage that is, in some ways, the most ghastly part of Anne’s embrace of her full darkness. Killing individuals is terrible, and we saw the damage that did to people like Dr Edwards’ daughter. Yet Anne essentially ruins the Leveners when she kills Margaret, and she shows no evidence of remorse or guilt over that consequence. It’s all the same to her.
And so she sets off into the world. I wonder if her mother knows or suspects Anne’s nature and what she has helped to unleash on an unsuspecting Britain. The Butcher's Hook is ultimately about transformation: Anne grows up from a precocious child into a dangerous young adult, and it’s anyone’s guess where she might go or who might earn her wrath next. All in all, it isn’t the novel I was expecting, but it’s fascinating nonetheless.
I received an ARC of The Butcher’s Hook for free from House of Anansi Press in return for an honest review. And I will be honest: this book squicked me out a bit. I loves me the free books, though, and if you want me to talk about how much your book squicked me out, get in touch!
Janet Ellis serves up what seems, at first, to be a fairly standard piece of historical fiction. Anne Jaccob doesn’t want to get married—but since this is London in 1763, she gets little say in the matter. She tries to distract herself from the unwanted suit by going after the butcher’s boy, gradually developing her coquettish skills and becoming more comfortable with the desires she feels when she is around the down-to-earth young Fub. Just when you think you’ve got this thing figured out, there is a twist that sends Anne off on an entirely different trajectory. It’s not what you think … but it walks that strange line between hilarious and macabre.
The beginning is lovely. Ellis develops Anne’s character quickly: we see how she is bright and eager for knowledge, even when every young. Unfortunately, Anne discovers the hard way that her sex means this thirst for knowledge won’t always be celebrated, let alone satisfied. The scene between her and Dr Edwards is very awkward and uncomfortable, to be sure. However I was actually more moved by Anne’s falling out with Keziah. This, to me, marked the moment that Anne realizes she is different, not just from men but from other women; it foreshadows her always being alone. Anne’s lack of companionship throughout her early adolescence, her lack of confidants, seems to play a big role in shaping her prior to her infatuation with Fub.
I also like how Ellis explores Anne’s nascent sexuality. Depictions of female masturbation are too few in fiction, so it’s cool that Ellis works it into a book that is all about repressed sexuality. After the meet-cute with Fub, an overwhelmed Anne retreats to her room. Ellis briefly and tastefully—but clearly—describes what’s going on, making it clear that Anne is definitely in tune with her body and aware of how to pleasure herself. This scene, almost a footnote at the end of a chapter, is in some ways much more transgressive than either the sex or the slaughter that follows.
Because, yeah. Anne straight-up murders a guy. Then a boy. Then a girl her own age.
Watching as Anne plots the murder of Dr Edwards is fascinating. Ellis conveys the thrill that Anne receives from finally having a measure of power: she can do something, can take action, to fix something she perceives as having gone wrong in her life. She harnesses the only leverage that she has (her femininity and youthful attractiveness) and lures Edwards into a secluded spot. The clinical way that she goes about killing him, and his very calm reaction to the act, almost tilts the book towards melodrama. Almost.
What actually tilts the book is what happens next, when Anne discovers a boy who went to Dr Edwards for some tutoring is suspicious and might tip the police off about her. I love this trope (I can’t find its page on TVTropes, if one exists), where in order to cover up your murder you have to kill someone else … and then the whole thing just snowballs. But if her first murder reveals Anne’s cold-bloodedness, this murder shows her utter lack of conscience. We could have attributed her offing Dr Edwards, in part, to his abuse of her when she was younger. The boy, aside from threatening to spill his guts, was innocent. And Anne’s ability to act so calmly, both when talking to Dr Edwards’ daughter and when talking to the vicar about the boy, demonstrates her deeply amoral character.
The “Jane Austen meets Gone Girl” comparison on the back of the book makes sense now. I kind of ignored it before I read the book, because I haven’t read Gone Girl and have no interest in it. That being said, I might characterize this more as “Emily Brontë meets Gone Girl,” because I think that Brontë could very well have written Gone Girl if she were alive today. Ellis is essentially replacing the Gothic horror aspect of Wuthering Heights with a no-less-chilling more modern approach to the psychopath. Although I was looking forward more to a modern deconstruction of the matchmaking of that era, instead I got to watch Anne get discounted and ignored as a result of her sex and perceived fragility. She outright confesses to Fub, at least twice, and he laughs in her face.
That ending though.
Dr Edwards’ death is revenge; the boy’s is expedience. What is Margaret’s? Malice. Plain and simple. Anne understands she cannot ever have Fub, cannot run away with him much as she might like to … but if she can’t have Fub, then she resolves that Margaret won’t have him either. Again we see the premeditation, the careful planning and guile and flattery that she uses to put her victim at ease. This time, however, there is even more cruelty. Unlike Edwards, who—while not deserving to be murdered—did wrong Anne grievously, Margaret has done nothing wrong at all. Yet Anne brutalizes her, leaves her broken and bloody to die in a fire—which, by the way, consumes and destroys the butcher’s livelihood.
It’s this collateral damage that is, in some ways, the most ghastly part of Anne’s embrace of her full darkness. Killing individuals is terrible, and we saw the damage that did to people like Dr Edwards’ daughter. Yet Anne essentially ruins the Leveners when she kills Margaret, and she shows no evidence of remorse or guilt over that consequence. It’s all the same to her.
And so she sets off into the world. I wonder if her mother knows or suspects Anne’s nature and what she has helped to unleash on an unsuspecting Britain. The Butcher's Hook is ultimately about transformation: Anne grows up from a precocious child into a dangerous young adult, and it’s anyone’s guess where she might go or who might earn her wrath next. All in all, it isn’t the novel I was expecting, but it’s fascinating nonetheless.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 13, 2017
'Every girl hopes to find love and situation neatly bundled. It is hardly ever so.’ No truer word spoken. If only Anne had paid attention...
Fantastic read! Loved it. What a delicious main character Anne is and how refreshing to have a hormonal teenager, needy and unbalanced as the central figure of the story.. I really felt for and with her for much of the story and then the reader becomes slightly uneasy....I won't say more: find out for yourself!
Fantastic read! Loved it. What a delicious main character Anne is and how refreshing to have a hormonal teenager, needy and unbalanced as the central figure of the story.. I really felt for and with her for much of the story and then the reader becomes slightly uneasy....I won't say more: find out for yourself!
July 16, 2018
Well, this was just deliciously wicked
If I had to describe The Butcher's Hook's writing style in one word, I'd choose sharp. Ellis's writing immediately feels very measured, like she's carefully considered what she wants to convey and precisely how she wants to convey it. And word by word, Ellis creates the acerbic, fierce, and starkly present protagonist that is Anne. And boy did I love being inside Anne's head. As twisted as her thoughts could sometimes (always) be, they always made a strange kind of sense. And as a reader, I'm not interested in condoning characters' actions so much as I am in understanding them—and with Anne, I always understood (though definitely not condoned lol). To put it simply, she was compelling as hell.
The Butcher's Hook was a feminist historical fiction novel with a badass anti-heroine and razor sharp writing. Is anyone really all that surprised that I loved it?
If I had to describe The Butcher's Hook's writing style in one word, I'd choose sharp. Ellis's writing immediately feels very measured, like she's carefully considered what she wants to convey and precisely how she wants to convey it. And word by word, Ellis creates the acerbic, fierce, and starkly present protagonist that is Anne. And boy did I love being inside Anne's head. As twisted as her thoughts could sometimes (always) be, they always made a strange kind of sense. And as a reader, I'm not interested in condoning characters' actions so much as I am in understanding them—and with Anne, I always understood (though definitely not condoned lol). To put it simply, she was compelling as hell.
The Butcher's Hook was a feminist historical fiction novel with a badass anti-heroine and razor sharp writing. Is anyone really all that surprised that I loved it?
September 5, 2017
Great debut! My favorite part is the writing itself. I am also a huge fan of historical fiction, especially when it takes place in England. The time is 1763 and Anna, our MC, is coming of age. Nothing light and fluffy about this tale though. This is dark, gritty and sometimes gross. This was almost a five star read for me, but some Anna's antics are a little OTT. Never the less, an awesome read and I look forward to what this author writes next.
September 14, 2016
I'm glad I missed the hype around this book as perhaps I would've been expecting something different otherwise! It's definitely a macabre tale, telling the story of Anne, a young, girl in Georgian London. Naturally her parents (particularly her father) want to marry her off to someone they consider suitable. She has other ideas. I liked Anne who was feisty and determined and who had ambivalent feelings towards her newborn sister as well as her own mother, while resenting her father and his influence over her life. However the less savoury aspects of her character begin to emerge after she meets Fub, the butcher's boy. Butchery, in many different guises, is the backdrop to this story, as is the treatment of young women as chattels and the fact that their own wishes come last in a long list of what's acceptable behaviour. The Butcher's Hook can be read on a lot of different levels - a comment on women's place in society and on the kind of lives they are supposed to lead; an insight into the mind of a young woman who feels trapped but whose boundaries are suddenly changed; an exploration of how actions, even fatal ones, can be justified in our minds. I wouldn't call it a comfortable read, but it's certainly intruiging!
May 4, 2017
I've spent a lot of time lately thinking about life in 18th century England and America. One constantly recurring thought I've been having is how even for the upper classes it must still have been a muddy, odorous, and dark existence, for the lack of modern medicine, indoor plumbing and electric lighting. I look for dirty fingernails when I watch costume dramas, and think about the hint of sourness underneath all the powder, wigs, and fine clothes. I'm fascinated by the time as a transition period between antiseptic modernity and the grit and grime of still living close to the earth.
The Butcher's Hook is that dark, dank feeling in book form.
It starts sort of like a less buoyant Catherine Called Birdy, as our antiheroine Anne Jaccob's brutish father makes her life miserable by trying to arrange a marriage for her with an older fop with a fortune, whose sweet breath and lacy clothes make her gag and whom she tries to repulse (successfully) by talking in detail about her period. We get the sense that Anne is maybe a little odd socially...and who wouldn't be, given the things that have happened to her and her unloving household? But her preoccupation with the butcher's apprentice, Fub, who serves her house seems well within the norm of a young woman's sexual awakening.
Then things take a turn in the last third of the book. It's expected that a book where butchery is a running motif wouldn't shy away from viscera -- there is plenty of that. It was sometimes so visceral that I had a hard time reading, like I was being dared to turn away as Anne was by the butcher's wife as she watched a calf slaughtered for the first time. It's no accident.
I'd recommend The Butcher's Hook for anyone who is not afraid of ugliness. There's a lot of it. The book is also blackly funny, and sensual, and a little bit feminist, so I don't hesitate to suggest those who also love wicked stories try it out. Hannah Kent, who wrote the very excellent Burial Rites, blurbed it. That recommendation could hardly steer you wrong.
The Butcher's Hook is that dark, dank feeling in book form.
It starts sort of like a less buoyant Catherine Called Birdy, as our antiheroine Anne Jaccob's brutish father makes her life miserable by trying to arrange a marriage for her with an older fop with a fortune, whose sweet breath and lacy clothes make her gag and whom she tries to repulse (successfully) by talking in detail about her period. We get the sense that Anne is maybe a little odd socially...and who wouldn't be, given the things that have happened to her and her unloving household? But her preoccupation with the butcher's apprentice, Fub, who serves her house seems well within the norm of a young woman's sexual awakening.
Then things take a turn in the last third of the book. It's expected that a book where butchery is a running motif wouldn't shy away from viscera -- there is plenty of that. It was sometimes so visceral that I had a hard time reading, like I was being dared to turn away as Anne was by the butcher's wife as she watched a calf slaughtered for the first time. It's no accident.
I'd recommend The Butcher's Hook for anyone who is not afraid of ugliness. There's a lot of it. The book is also blackly funny, and sensual, and a little bit feminist, so I don't hesitate to suggest those who also love wicked stories try it out. Hannah Kent, who wrote the very excellent Burial Rites, blurbed it. That recommendation could hardly steer you wrong.
December 1, 2015
Janet Ellis' debut novel is a bawdy coming of age tale set in Georgian London. Our protagonist, Anne Jaccob, is the eldest daughter of a middle-class family, whose boorish father seems intent on marrying her off to the wealthiest suitor. Far removed from Jane Austen's world of rural gentility, Anne hopes to flee her father's tyranny by seeking romance with Fub, the butcher's boy. Thus she enters the dark and violent underbelly of Georgian London with all its sights and smells being vividly presented to the reader.
Anne is a compelling character with both attractive and repellent qualities. You feel sympathy for her situation and admiration for her determination to control her own destiny but she could do with a modicum of self-restraint at times! The male characters are mere satellites in her orbit, ruled by their desire for sex and money.
I thoroughly enjoyed this bawdy romp through Georgian London, especially the last third of the novel where the pace really picked up. It reminded me of Sarah Waters' Fingersmith and Emma Donoghue's Slammerkin, no mean feat for a debut novel. I believe that the novel was originally submitted to potential publishers under a pseudonym, an encouraging fact as Ms Ellis' celebrity status was irrelevant. Two Roads have signed her for a two-book deal and this debut has whet my appetite for seconds.
Anne is a compelling character with both attractive and repellent qualities. You feel sympathy for her situation and admiration for her determination to control her own destiny but she could do with a modicum of self-restraint at times! The male characters are mere satellites in her orbit, ruled by their desire for sex and money.
I thoroughly enjoyed this bawdy romp through Georgian London, especially the last third of the novel where the pace really picked up. It reminded me of Sarah Waters' Fingersmith and Emma Donoghue's Slammerkin, no mean feat for a debut novel. I believe that the novel was originally submitted to potential publishers under a pseudonym, an encouraging fact as Ms Ellis' celebrity status was irrelevant. Two Roads have signed her for a two-book deal and this debut has whet my appetite for seconds.
May 15, 2018
I realized all of a sudden that I never reviewed this.
I don't really have too too much to say. It follows a girl in 1763 England born to a well off family who falls in love with the butcher's apprentice. It started out pretty boring, just a lot of day to day life, not that I minded that. But once the romance started it escalated really quickly into something I was completely not expecting. This book was WILD at the end and I actually ended up really really enjoying where it went.
It was also a lot more sexual than a book in this time period tends to be when the main character is a woman, but I really enjoyed that the author chose to portray the fact that women at these times would have had urges and desires, just as much as men of that time period.
All in all a slow book with a really unexpected ending.
I don't really have too too much to say. It follows a girl in 1763 England born to a well off family who falls in love with the butcher's apprentice. It started out pretty boring, just a lot of day to day life, not that I minded that. But once the romance started it escalated really quickly into something I was completely not expecting. This book was WILD at the end and I actually ended up really really enjoying where it went.
It was also a lot more sexual than a book in this time period tends to be when the main character is a woman, but I really enjoyed that the author chose to portray the fact that women at these times would have had urges and desires, just as much as men of that time period.
All in all a slow book with a really unexpected ending.
August 11, 2020
I don't want her death on my conscience. None of the others are, after all.
"The Butcher's Hook" is a story about a young woman in Georgian London who has very few choices about how to live her life, and so she finds her own ways of overcoming her obstacles and getting what she wants. Through the bleak setting and gritty writing, the reader immediately feels transported back to a time of incredible hardships, where most children died before reaching adulthood and women were given neither a proper education nor a choice in how they wanted to live their lives. So the main character Anne, in her mid-teens, has to employ both childlike pragmatism and a sharp wit to reach her goals and while it is sometimes quite gruesome to watch, it is also impossible to look away.
This story does not depict major events in history or recount a grand, epic tale, but more the quiet, everyday suffering that was common in those days and one girl's unique way of dealing with it. Highly recommend for fans of dark, gritty stories that leave you unsure about whether to root for or against the protagonist's success.
"The Butcher's Hook" is a story about a young woman in Georgian London who has very few choices about how to live her life, and so she finds her own ways of overcoming her obstacles and getting what she wants. Through the bleak setting and gritty writing, the reader immediately feels transported back to a time of incredible hardships, where most children died before reaching adulthood and women were given neither a proper education nor a choice in how they wanted to live their lives. So the main character Anne, in her mid-teens, has to employ both childlike pragmatism and a sharp wit to reach her goals and while it is sometimes quite gruesome to watch, it is also impossible to look away.
This story does not depict major events in history or recount a grand, epic tale, but more the quiet, everyday suffering that was common in those days and one girl's unique way of dealing with it. Highly recommend for fans of dark, gritty stories that leave you unsure about whether to root for or against the protagonist's success.
June 19, 2016
What an anachronistic load of attempted shock and horror. There is a genuine delight in reading a novel with an anti-hero at its centre; what a shame then that this novel gives us an anti-heroine with absolutely no interest or appeal. It's 1753 and Anne is depressed and isolated in a grim household still mourning the death of a treasured young son, her only (temporarily) surviving sibling. Her trauma over his loss leads her on a path of destruction that includes a surprisingly liberated attitude to sex given her class and the supposed year - indeed the absence of supervision this girl is able to enjoy would delight a modern teenager let alone a young woman in the mid-1700s. I suppose we are meant to be excited by the plotting, by the violence and by the seventeen mentions of her desire to put her hand "between her legs" but it is all so laboured and dull that by the end I was wishing that Anne would step in front of a speeding carriage or be confined to her room by her horrible parents. Sadly, once again, I was left disappointed by this terrible, terrible book.
September 3, 2019
I very nearly DNF'd this. But I'm glad that I didn't. I wasn't expecting the dark twisted journey this book took me on. I'm on a bit of a historical fiction kick at the moment and this satisfied it and then some.
December 27, 2018
Brace yourselves.
I read a romance book.
And I liked it.
Of course, it’s a twisted, disturbing romance with a main character who murders her romantic rivals, but that’s a small detail. I’m still counting this as a romance.
Anne Jaccob is a nineteen-year-old woman living in London in the mid-1700s. She’s an upper-class lady who’s used to getting whatever she wants. Her parents have money, and Anne has servants to take care of her every whim. She’s very sheltered. Her parents rarely let her leave the house. She’s uneducated and has had very little contact with people outside her home. When the butcher’s boy, Fub, shows up at Anne’s door to deliver the family’s meat order, Anne immediately becomes infatuated with Fub’s strong body and the blood on his hands. Anne wants to marry Fub. And she’ll murder anyone who tries to stop her.
This book has mixed reviews on Goodreads, and I understand why. It’s gory and often crude. There’s sexual abuse and violent human and animal deaths. If you can’t handle reading about bodily fluids, you should avoid this book. All the fluids are present and accounted for. Anne is not a likeable character. She’s sex-obsessed and has no empathy for other humans. For Anne, people are just obstacles to overcome. She either kills them or manipulates them until they give her what she wants.
I like this book because it’s unusual. I’ve read and watched a lot of stuff about male serial killers, but you don’t often hear about women committing a string of brutal murders. To me, Anne’s behavior makes a twisted kind of sense. She’s spent most of her life in isolation, and she’s used to being handed whatever she asks for. She doesn’t know how to behave appropriately in public. When she meets Fub, she doesn’t understand why she can’t marry him. She’s never been told “no” before.
Anne’s murder spree is also a reaction to the oppression that women faced in 1700s England. Since Anne is a girl and can’t take over her father’s business, her father doesn’t see a reason to educate her. Her parents mostly ignore her. They give all their attention to her younger brother. Anne’s only purpose in life is to marry a wealthy, upper-class gentleman. Her parents have a man picked out for her, but Anne isn’t attracted to him. She wants Fub.
Even as a child, Anne’s father uses her to impress his business clients. Anne’s only friend is the daughter of a rich businessman. Anne’s father encourages her to play nicely with the girl, but Anne doesn’t know how to be nice. She tries to impress her friend by showing her a rotting mouse corpse and then making her a necklace out of spit and hair.
Yeah. Anne is a strange character. She’s brilliantly messed-up. I think I’ll remember her for a long time.
I have two complaints about this novel. First, the typos. Why are there such obvious typos in a finished book? Whenever I came across a glaring error, it pulled me out of the story.
Next, the book has a saggy middle. Anne spends the middle of the novel meeting Fub in secret, having sex with him, and plotting murder. I got slightly impatient with it. I understand that Anne loves sex and only cares about Fub because he has a nice body, but I wanted to get to the murders.
Is literary historical horror fiction a genre? The Butcher’s Hook has pretty much everything I like in a story. A vivid setting, good writing, deeply flawed characters, and a few murders. I need to find more books like this.
TL;DR: Do you like historical fiction? Do you like horror? Do you have a strong stomach? If you answered “yes” to all those questions, read this book. It’s delightfully screwed-up.
I read a romance book.
And I liked it.
Of course, it’s a twisted, disturbing romance with a main character who murders her romantic rivals, but that’s a small detail. I’m still counting this as a romance.
Anne Jaccob is a nineteen-year-old woman living in London in the mid-1700s. She’s an upper-class lady who’s used to getting whatever she wants. Her parents have money, and Anne has servants to take care of her every whim. She’s very sheltered. Her parents rarely let her leave the house. She’s uneducated and has had very little contact with people outside her home. When the butcher’s boy, Fub, shows up at Anne’s door to deliver the family’s meat order, Anne immediately becomes infatuated with Fub’s strong body and the blood on his hands. Anne wants to marry Fub. And she’ll murder anyone who tries to stop her.
This book has mixed reviews on Goodreads, and I understand why. It’s gory and often crude. There’s sexual abuse and violent human and animal deaths. If you can’t handle reading about bodily fluids, you should avoid this book. All the fluids are present and accounted for. Anne is not a likeable character. She’s sex-obsessed and has no empathy for other humans. For Anne, people are just obstacles to overcome. She either kills them or manipulates them until they give her what she wants.
I like this book because it’s unusual. I’ve read and watched a lot of stuff about male serial killers, but you don’t often hear about women committing a string of brutal murders. To me, Anne’s behavior makes a twisted kind of sense. She’s spent most of her life in isolation, and she’s used to being handed whatever she asks for. She doesn’t know how to behave appropriately in public. When she meets Fub, she doesn’t understand why she can’t marry him. She’s never been told “no” before.
Anne’s murder spree is also a reaction to the oppression that women faced in 1700s England. Since Anne is a girl and can’t take over her father’s business, her father doesn’t see a reason to educate her. Her parents mostly ignore her. They give all their attention to her younger brother. Anne’s only purpose in life is to marry a wealthy, upper-class gentleman. Her parents have a man picked out for her, but Anne isn’t attracted to him. She wants Fub.
“Every girl hopes to find love and situation neatly bundled. It is hardly ever so.” – The Butcher’s Hook
Even as a child, Anne’s father uses her to impress his business clients. Anne’s only friend is the daughter of a rich businessman. Anne’s father encourages her to play nicely with the girl, but Anne doesn’t know how to be nice. She tries to impress her friend by showing her a rotting mouse corpse and then making her a necklace out of spit and hair.
Yeah. Anne is a strange character. She’s brilliantly messed-up. I think I’ll remember her for a long time.
“To my mind, we carry all that we need to survive, indeed to live well, in our heads and our hearts from birth. We must decide our own paths accordingly and individually. There is precious little other instruction available.” – The Butcher’s Hook
I have two complaints about this novel. First, the typos. Why are there such obvious typos in a finished book? Whenever I came across a glaring error, it pulled me out of the story.
Next, the book has a saggy middle. Anne spends the middle of the novel meeting Fub in secret, having sex with him, and plotting murder. I got slightly impatient with it. I understand that Anne loves sex and only cares about Fub because he has a nice body, but I wanted to get to the murders.
Is literary historical horror fiction a genre? The Butcher’s Hook has pretty much everything I like in a story. A vivid setting, good writing, deeply flawed characters, and a few murders. I need to find more books like this.
TL;DR: Do you like historical fiction? Do you like horror? Do you have a strong stomach? If you answered “yes” to all those questions, read this book. It’s delightfully screwed-up.
February 17, 2016
I really enjoyed this debut offering from Janet Ellis (of Blue Peter fame) I heard quite a loud buzz about this, as one of THE books to read in 2016 and spotted it on a few favourite lists, so I was eager to read it before it becomes over hyped.
I was hoping it would completely blow my socks off and it did captivate and entertain me to a large degree. None of the characters are very likeable, they are all just a teeny bit larger than life, charicatured with an almost Dickensian tongue in cheek.
The main protagonist Anne Jaccob, is a young woman whom, the story tells us, has her innocence stolen at a tender age by a slightly paedophilic tutor who gets a touch too close for comfort. It's my belief that this completely amoral and immoral young lady has a thread of corruption running through her right from the start and has little virtue to steal.
Hardened by the death of a baby brother she had lavished affection of only to be left bereft at his sudden death, she deliberately erects a shell of callosity around her allowing no-one close. Her Mothers attention is claimed by a newborn daughter, and she gets no paternal warmth (like father like daughter, in my opinion)
She avoids closeness and overtures of friendship, yet craves love and passion and she develops a fixation on the butchers boy Fub who delivers meat to the family household. Anne takes it upon herself to pursue this young fella, despite her father arranging a mutally beneficial engagement for her to the foppish, pernickety and decidedly slimy Simeon Onions.
Deciding to take her future in her own hands she sets off on a destructive path, with no thought for any of the consequences.
I found that this manipulative little madam managed to contrive a remarkable amount of freedom for a girl from a middle class background in the 18th century, however I admired her single mindedness and resourcefulness. I SO couldn't warm to her though, she is dissolute, profligate and quite licentiously repellant.
The book completely sucked me in and I was enthralled by the story and kept riffling through the pages at a fair old pace. It's a hectic and hair raising tale, a coming of age story for adults. Read it, love it, but don't be taken in by dear Anne who is like an aniseed ball, hard and deceptive with any sweetness well tempered by the curious bitterness of flavour and the darkness of licorice.
My gratitude goes to Bookbridgr and the publisher Two Roads for my review copy.
I was hoping it would completely blow my socks off and it did captivate and entertain me to a large degree. None of the characters are very likeable, they are all just a teeny bit larger than life, charicatured with an almost Dickensian tongue in cheek.
The main protagonist Anne Jaccob, is a young woman whom, the story tells us, has her innocence stolen at a tender age by a slightly paedophilic tutor who gets a touch too close for comfort. It's my belief that this completely amoral and immoral young lady has a thread of corruption running through her right from the start and has little virtue to steal.
Hardened by the death of a baby brother she had lavished affection of only to be left bereft at his sudden death, she deliberately erects a shell of callosity around her allowing no-one close. Her Mothers attention is claimed by a newborn daughter, and she gets no paternal warmth (like father like daughter, in my opinion)
She avoids closeness and overtures of friendship, yet craves love and passion and she develops a fixation on the butchers boy Fub who delivers meat to the family household. Anne takes it upon herself to pursue this young fella, despite her father arranging a mutally beneficial engagement for her to the foppish, pernickety and decidedly slimy Simeon Onions.
Deciding to take her future in her own hands she sets off on a destructive path, with no thought for any of the consequences.
I found that this manipulative little madam managed to contrive a remarkable amount of freedom for a girl from a middle class background in the 18th century, however I admired her single mindedness and resourcefulness. I SO couldn't warm to her though, she is dissolute, profligate and quite licentiously repellant.
The book completely sucked me in and I was enthralled by the story and kept riffling through the pages at a fair old pace. It's a hectic and hair raising tale, a coming of age story for adults. Read it, love it, but don't be taken in by dear Anne who is like an aniseed ball, hard and deceptive with any sweetness well tempered by the curious bitterness of flavour and the darkness of licorice.
My gratitude goes to Bookbridgr and the publisher Two Roads for my review copy.
October 30, 2017
I've been so tempted to give this book 1 star. Is it bad? No. It is average. Objectively, if things had been different, I would've given it 3 stars. I had a massive problem with it though: I HATED THE MAIN CHARACTER. HATED HER WITH A PASSION. I haven't felt that way about any character in a while. She tries to make you empathise with her because her father is going to marry her to a man she doesn't love (how original in Georgian London) but in reality Anne is one vicious, heartless bitch.
So, in the end, I decided on two stars. Although I despised the main character and how the story developed, I can't deny it was well-written. My hate for the main character took over any positive thing I could say about this. I can see why it would appeal to many readers, and it can be a mesmerasing read but this anti-hero was just not my cup of tea — and I normally like anti-heroes. Most of the time I wanted to kill her myself and instead of being fascinated by her, I was just angry.
So, in the end, I decided on two stars. Although I despised the main character and how the story developed, I can't deny it was well-written. My hate for the main character took over any positive thing I could say about this. I can see why it would appeal to many readers, and it can be a mesmerasing read but this anti-hero was just not my cup of tea — and I normally like anti-heroes. Most of the time I wanted to kill her myself and instead of being fascinated by her, I was just angry.
September 24, 2018
Of former Blue Peter presenter Janet Ellis' debut novel, Hannah Kent writes: 'Ellis has created something marvellous in the character of Anne Jaccob - her voice is strange, dark and utterly mesmeric... This is historical fiction as I've never encountered it before: full of viscera, snorting humour and obsessive desire.' Other reviews which pepper the cover and the first page of The Butcher's Hook describe it variously as 'bewitching', 'dark, shocking and funny', and 'terrific.' I was therefore suitably excited to begin, and snapped up a gorgeous turquoise hardback copy for myself.
The Butcher's Hook is set in Georgian London during the summer of 1765. Nineteen-year-old Anne Jaccob, the eldest daughter in a wealthy but unhappy family, is our protagonist and narrator. Although 'her family want for nothing, her father is uncaring, her mother is ailing, and the baby brother who taught her how to love is dead.' In the novel's first few chapters, Anne is 'awakened to the possibility of joy when she meets Fub, the butcher's apprentice, and begins to imagine a life of passion with him.' However, as suited the time, Anne's family have chosen her 'a more suitable husband' than the lowly Fub could ever become.
The novel opens when Anne's mother is in childbirth, and Anne fully expects that she will not get back up again. She says: 'This is my nineteenth summer, but I have known only thirteen happy years to this date. And that is only if I include my early childhood in the reckoning, back when, in all honesty, I owned no accountable state of mind. Without that, it is a very poor tally.' Anne's present is interspersed with memories from her childhood, many of them rather dark and maudlin.
Anne is a headstrong character, who does not let societal mores prevent her from living as she pleases. This is a pivotal time in her life, in which she is learning about herself, her body, and her sexuality, along with the amount of power which she can wield. Throughout, she 'shows no fear or hesitation. Even if it means getting a little blood on her hands...'. Anne has a rather hard and cold interior. Of the 'Scrap in the cot', as she addresses her new sister, she expresses: 'Do not think me harsh that I do not coo at this new-born infant, but I had done much loving with that boy my brother, and he had coughed his last just before his third birthday two years ago, so a lot of good all that loving did him.'
As a character construct, Anne is fascinating and unusual. She has psychopathic tendencies, which are revealed close to the novel's beginning. As a young girl, she collected dead things which she viewed as treasure, and fantasised about heavy stone curlicues falling on a peer: 'If it cracked and fell, it would flatten her... I wanted it to happen so much that my teeth felt loose in my gums.' Anne is not likeable, but she has such a depth and complexity about her.
Ellis' character descriptions felt vivid and curious from the outset. For instance, she writes: 'This man was a great long coil of a person, his face was a thin stripe of flesh with features squeezed on, even his hands were stretched and narrow. I imagined his daughter perched beside me, so tall that her hair would catch the breeze, like a pennant on a ship's mast.' When Anne meets Fub for the first time, she says: 'I have never seen him before, but it is as if I recognise him. I stop in my tracks, because otherwise I might run to him. He looks as if he would speak but cannot remember how. We stare as intensely as if we're about to jump together from a great height. The world gives a great lurch then resumes its customary spinning.' Similarly, when she first meets loathsome suitor Simeon Onions, who has been selected by her father, she muses: 'The only way I can think of his heart without crying aloud is to imagine it impaled on a fruit knife and that lace shirt of his getting redder by the minute.' Anne's voice reminded me at times of the narrator of Margaret Atwood's Alias Grace.
Georgian London has been vividly and vigorously applied to The Butcher's Hook, and its dingy streets, strewn with poverty and disease, spring to life. A real sense of place is evoked, and Ellis reminds one throughout of the nuances of the city in which Anne lives. When she enters a church, she tells us: 'Their numbers thin as I approach the church, and by the time I tread the path to the door, I am alone. The huge heavy door is only slightly ajar, and it's quite a struggle to push it further. A smell of wax, incense, dust and something floral is so thick in the air it's almost visible. Not so any other person, for my footsteps sound loudly on the floor and even my skirt's swish is distinctly audible. There are no candles lit, doubtless to save money, for, even though it is morning and daylight outside, within is fusty darkness and shadows.'
The Butcher's Hook is an unusual novel, with a vivid and realistic protagonist. Its subject matter is rather dark, but its style is easy to read, and so immersive. I found it engaging from the outset, and the volatility of Anne as a character made some of the twists quite surprising. There are sparks of lovely imagery in the novel, and Ellis' writing is taut and accomplished. I found the ending markedly satisfying, and look forward to Ellis' future publications with interest.
The Butcher's Hook is set in Georgian London during the summer of 1765. Nineteen-year-old Anne Jaccob, the eldest daughter in a wealthy but unhappy family, is our protagonist and narrator. Although 'her family want for nothing, her father is uncaring, her mother is ailing, and the baby brother who taught her how to love is dead.' In the novel's first few chapters, Anne is 'awakened to the possibility of joy when she meets Fub, the butcher's apprentice, and begins to imagine a life of passion with him.' However, as suited the time, Anne's family have chosen her 'a more suitable husband' than the lowly Fub could ever become.
The novel opens when Anne's mother is in childbirth, and Anne fully expects that she will not get back up again. She says: 'This is my nineteenth summer, but I have known only thirteen happy years to this date. And that is only if I include my early childhood in the reckoning, back when, in all honesty, I owned no accountable state of mind. Without that, it is a very poor tally.' Anne's present is interspersed with memories from her childhood, many of them rather dark and maudlin.
Anne is a headstrong character, who does not let societal mores prevent her from living as she pleases. This is a pivotal time in her life, in which she is learning about herself, her body, and her sexuality, along with the amount of power which she can wield. Throughout, she 'shows no fear or hesitation. Even if it means getting a little blood on her hands...'. Anne has a rather hard and cold interior. Of the 'Scrap in the cot', as she addresses her new sister, she expresses: 'Do not think me harsh that I do not coo at this new-born infant, but I had done much loving with that boy my brother, and he had coughed his last just before his third birthday two years ago, so a lot of good all that loving did him.'
As a character construct, Anne is fascinating and unusual. She has psychopathic tendencies, which are revealed close to the novel's beginning. As a young girl, she collected dead things which she viewed as treasure, and fantasised about heavy stone curlicues falling on a peer: 'If it cracked and fell, it would flatten her... I wanted it to happen so much that my teeth felt loose in my gums.' Anne is not likeable, but she has such a depth and complexity about her.
Ellis' character descriptions felt vivid and curious from the outset. For instance, she writes: 'This man was a great long coil of a person, his face was a thin stripe of flesh with features squeezed on, even his hands were stretched and narrow. I imagined his daughter perched beside me, so tall that her hair would catch the breeze, like a pennant on a ship's mast.' When Anne meets Fub for the first time, she says: 'I have never seen him before, but it is as if I recognise him. I stop in my tracks, because otherwise I might run to him. He looks as if he would speak but cannot remember how. We stare as intensely as if we're about to jump together from a great height. The world gives a great lurch then resumes its customary spinning.' Similarly, when she first meets loathsome suitor Simeon Onions, who has been selected by her father, she muses: 'The only way I can think of his heart without crying aloud is to imagine it impaled on a fruit knife and that lace shirt of his getting redder by the minute.' Anne's voice reminded me at times of the narrator of Margaret Atwood's Alias Grace.
Georgian London has been vividly and vigorously applied to The Butcher's Hook, and its dingy streets, strewn with poverty and disease, spring to life. A real sense of place is evoked, and Ellis reminds one throughout of the nuances of the city in which Anne lives. When she enters a church, she tells us: 'Their numbers thin as I approach the church, and by the time I tread the path to the door, I am alone. The huge heavy door is only slightly ajar, and it's quite a struggle to push it further. A smell of wax, incense, dust and something floral is so thick in the air it's almost visible. Not so any other person, for my footsteps sound loudly on the floor and even my skirt's swish is distinctly audible. There are no candles lit, doubtless to save money, for, even though it is morning and daylight outside, within is fusty darkness and shadows.'
The Butcher's Hook is an unusual novel, with a vivid and realistic protagonist. Its subject matter is rather dark, but its style is easy to read, and so immersive. I found it engaging from the outset, and the volatility of Anne as a character made some of the twists quite surprising. There are sparks of lovely imagery in the novel, and Ellis' writing is taut and accomplished. I found the ending markedly satisfying, and look forward to Ellis' future publications with interest.
May 23, 2018
Beautifully written and very atmospheric
February 7, 2017
This was a hard book to rate. Do I give it a 2 star because it took a lot to get into the story or do I give it a 4 star because the main character was so warped in her thinking and so horrible in her actions that I found her fascinating. As you see 4 stars won. Strange because it is a book I will not be reading again.
After I read the book I had a close look at the pictures on the cover and they are cleaver because they are showing you some of the main things that happen in the story. I liked that.
Anne Jacobs was living in 1763 a rough time for woman of class for they were placed in marriages not for love but for profit. Her father is a well off buisness man in a loveless marriage and he is a hard man. Her mother has just had an other surviving baby, Anne dosn't want to get close to this baby because the last one she poured all her love into and it didn't make it past 4.
One day Anne meet Fub the butcher and she falls head over heals for him. He does to but he understands the rules, Anne and him are never going to be maried no matter how much they love each other. I liked Fub he was a sweet guy.
Anne has her issues, a sibling that died, a tutor that crossed the line, no friends to speek of, a terrible father, a creepy man her father has choosen for Anne to possibly marry and her thoughts and actions go from very dark to deadly. Not a girl/woman you would want to cross.
Did I like Anne, no. Did I understand her actions only to a point.
After I read the book I had a close look at the pictures on the cover and they are cleaver because they are showing you some of the main things that happen in the story. I liked that.
Anne Jacobs was living in 1763 a rough time for woman of class for they were placed in marriages not for love but for profit. Her father is a well off buisness man in a loveless marriage and he is a hard man. Her mother has just had an other surviving baby, Anne dosn't want to get close to this baby because the last one she poured all her love into and it didn't make it past 4.
One day Anne meet Fub the butcher and she falls head over heals for him. He does to but he understands the rules, Anne and him are never going to be maried no matter how much they love each other. I liked Fub he was a sweet guy.
Anne has her issues, a sibling that died, a tutor that crossed the line, no friends to speek of, a terrible father, a creepy man her father has choosen for Anne to possibly marry and her thoughts and actions go from very dark to deadly. Not a girl/woman you would want to cross.
Did I like Anne, no. Did I understand her actions only to a point.
March 21, 2016
I got this book at 5 pm ... 6 hours later done! Oh my gosh I'm blown away and truly in love this book was amazing wonderful, strong willed and stunning! I fell in love with the writing and the story. I cried and felt dread and happiness.I began and ended this world in 6 hours and already want to back inside it!
Thank you Amanda
Thank you Amanda
May 23, 2018
The Butcher's Hook, written in first person, follows the slow (and eventually somewhat predictable) descent of the novel's narrator, Anne, who lives at home with her parents, into increasingly disturbing perceptions of those around her. Janet Ellis, the author, explores illusion, delusion, and wild imagination in the character of Anne. Although the setting is the eighteenth-century, the protagonist is far from what a reader might anticipate in a female character set in this time period. Anne is the property of her father as a matter of law, but she is not willing to be confined by the limitations others of her sex are. Ellis's The Butcher's Hook reveals what it might look like for a young female to use the only powers she has in a world where her sense of self, power, and person-hood do not extend much beyond the borders of her own mind. This is a strong and solid 4, but for me it was not a 5. It was a bit too predictable for me to go any higher.
February 7, 2017
Such great writing. I loved how the metaphors got grosser and darker as the novel progressed. Quite a unique story too - I've not read anything quite like it before. Highly recommend. Similar dark content to the novel Perfume although I think this story is much more interesting and fun.
May 8, 2016
This book was a dream. It is all I could ever ask for and the cover quaintly matches my drink bottle - it was like living an Instagram flat lay.
April 24, 2018
The Author's notes induced me to award the 4th star :-)
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