The Strange Case of the Alchemist's Daughter

The Extraordinary Adventures of the Athena Club #1

by Theodora Goss, Kate Reading (Narrator)

Based on some of literature's horror and science fiction classics, this is the story of a remarkable group of women who come together to solve the mystery of a series of gruesome murders - and the bigger mystery of their own origins.

Mary Jekyll, alone and penniless following her parents' deaths, is curious about the secrets of her father's mysterious past. One clue in particular hints that Edward Hyde, her father's former friend and a murderer, may be nearby, and there is a reward for information leading to his capture...a reward that would solve all of her immediate financial woes.

But her hunt leads her to Hyde's daughter, Diana, a feral child left to be raised by nuns. With the assistance of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, Mary continues her search for the elusive Hyde and soon befriends more women, all of whom have been created through terrifying experimentation: Beatrice Rappaccini, Catherin Moreau, and Justine Frankenstein.

When their investigations lead them to the discovery of a secret society of immoral and power-crazed scientists, the horrors of their past return. Now it is up to the monsters to finally triumph over the monstrous.

Genres: Fantasy, Mystery, Historical Fiction, Fiction, Historical, Audiobook, Young Adult

14 pages, Audible Audio

First published June 20, 2017

About the author

Theodora Goss was born in Hungary and spent her childhood in various European countries before her family moved to the United States, where she completed a PhD in English literature. She is the World Fantasy and Locus Award-winning author of the short story and poetry collections In the Forest of Forgetting (2006), Songs for Ophelia (2014), and Snow White Learns Witchcraft (2019), as well as novella The Thorn and the Blossom (2012), debut novel The Strange Case of the Alchemist’s Daughter (2017), and sequels European Travel for the Monstrous Gentlewoman (2018) and The Sinister Mystery of the Mesmerizing Girl (2019). She has been a finalist for the Nebula, Crawford, Seiun, and Mythopoeic Awards, as well as on the Tiptree Award Honor List. Her work has been translated into thirteen languages. She teaches literature and writing at Boston University and in the Stonecoast MFA Program.

Reviews

[Riley · Rating 5 out of 5]

what could be better than a found family of monster girls solving mysteries in the victorian era

[Tadiana ✩Night Owl☽ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Final review, first posted on Fantasy Literature:

I've read several of Arthur Conan Doyle's original Sherlock Holmes works in the last few years, as well as The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson. In my college days (not long after the Victorian age) I also read Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and H.G. Wells' The Island of Dr. Moreau. Would it be sacrilege to say that I enjoyed this delightful pastiche and tribute to Holmes and other Victorian era fantasy better than most of the originals? What The Strange Case of the Alchemist’s Daughter lacks in literary depth, it makes up for in humor and accessibility.

Mary Jekyll, daughter of Dr. Jekyll, who has been gone for many years, is facing a penniless life on her own after her mother’s death. Mary comes across some mysterious papers in her mother’s desk that lead her to believe that Mr. Hyde may still be around (she has no idea he was her father’s alter ego). The reward for Hyde’s capture for his murder of Sir Carew many years ago is very appealing, but Mary’s not certain whether that the reward is still being offered, or who she can trust with her potentially valuable information. So she decides to go to 221B Baker Street, to enlist the help of Sherlock Holmes.

One thing leads to another, and gradually we assemble a very appealing and fascinating cast of characters: Diana Hyde, a wild and irrepressible 14 year old; Beatrice Rappaccini (from Nathaniel Hawthorne’s short story “Rappaccini's Daughter”), with poisonous breath and a burning touch; Catherine Moreau, a woman with disturbingly cat-like qualities; and Justine Frankenstein, an extremely tall and gentle woman who was assembled to be the bride of Frankenstein ― all women who might be considered monsters by society.

These young women, with the help of Sherlock Holmes and some additional characters (it’s nice to see a servant play a substantive role in the plot), work together to solve a series of creepy murders, in which young prostitutes have been found dead with various parts of their bodies missing. To make matters worse, the murders are tied to a secretive society of scientists, the Société des Alchimistes, to which all of these women have a connection as well.

The Strange Case of the Alchemist’s Daughter is, on a higher level, faithful to the Victorian era and the works that inspired, but takes some intriguing (and necessary) liberties with the original stories: Mary Shelley deliberately misled her readers when she wrote that Dr. Frankenstein had destroyed his woman creation before giving it life, and Beatrice relates a different ending to “Rappachini’s Daughter.” While these women are generally well-grounded in Victorian times, we see aspects of that society that often don’t appear in literature: Beatrice supports Votes for Women and Dress Reform, Catherine’s atheism is counterbalanced by Justine’s deep religious faith, Diana has been raised by prostitutes and mistrusts men on principle, and Mary finds herself wondering how much more women could accomplish if they were permitted to wear trousers.

These women are a diverse group, each with a distinct and memorable personality and unexpected talents. Though they’ve experienced rejection and cruelty in their lives, and some of them even sexual and other types of abuse, in the process of working together they find support and friendship. They eventually name their group the Athena Club (“We claim the wisdom of Athena, but we identify with her dubious parentage”). It’s refreshing to see these familiar stories through the eyes of the female characters, rather than the men who used and mistreated them.

The sometimes dark plot of The Strange Case of the Alchemist’s Daughter is lightened by the humorous banter between these women, especially as ― in a rather meta feature of the book ― they continually interrupt Catherine’s writing of their story with snarky comments and arguments about how the book is being written. These side conversations do sap a little of the tension from the story, since it’s clear that all of these young women have survived the investigation and are still together, but they add a fun and creative twist to the story.

Though a part of the mystery is resolved, there are lingering questions about the the Société des Alchimistes, and another mystery raises its head in the end. Here’s hoping for many more adventures and mysteries for the Athena Club!

I received a free copy of this book for review from the publisher through NetGalley. Thanks!

[chan ☆ · Rating 2 out of 5]

i really did not enjoy this 😬

not a bad book just really not my cup of tea

[Melora · Rating 2 out of 5]

“The Unfortunate Case of the Gimmicks That Took Over the Story”

This was disappointing. Hard to see how anyone could write a mash-up of so many Victorian “monster” stories and make it boring, but that's what Goss has succeeded in doing here.

The business of having the characters interjecting comments into the narrative wasn't exactly a problem, but it didn't really add anything, and it was a bit of a distraction from the narrative. The real problem is that the author, in her eagerness to include references to so many Victorian characters, both literary and historical, completely neglected to write an interesting story. We have Jekyll and Hyde, Van Helsing and Renfield, Rappaccini and Moreau, Mary Shelley and her mad scientist, Darwin and Lamarck, Jack the Ripper, Holmes and Watson, and more, but the story holding them all together was, apparently, barely an afterthought. Characterization, also, was neglected, and most of the characters are completely flat.

The “conclusion,” after the brief flare of activity that serves as a climax, is utterly interminable. Absolutely nothing happens in the last hundred pages, which are mind-bogglingly dull and repetitious. Reading the Kindle version, I kept supposing that something had to happen, or that maybe the final 10% would be a sample of the next in in the series, but, nope. Two stars, and one of those is for the pretty cover.

[Noah · Rating 5 out of 5]

But take my advice, you don't stand a chance / Freaks are so bad they got their own dance / So if you wanna live a nice quiet life / Do yourself a favor, don't come out at night (Freaks Come Out At Night – Whodini).

The Strange Case of the Alchemist’s Daughter isn’t the most dangerous book out there due to monsters and dastardly fiends lurking around every corner, but rather because every time I decide to pick it up off my book shelf… I’m then compelled to reread the entire series for the hundredth time. Compelled, I tell you, compelled! Again and again and again. And something you should know about me is that I’m nothing if not a victim of impulse. What am I going to read next? Your guess is as good as mine! So yeah, I just thought it’d be important going forward to let you know that with every word I say in this review, it’s coming from a super fan of this trilogy! It's just a big ole nerd talking here, but instead of just writing a bunch of exclamation points and calling it a day, I'm going to attempt to cool it with the over-the-top praise so I can appear more chill than I actually am. Because if you’re anything like me, then you also find excessive compliments towards something popular has the opposite effect and ends up actually turning you off of the thing that everybody loves. I know this sounds crazy, but I really don’t like the Hot Ones interviewer guy, and it’s mostly because I can’t stand his monotone voice or overly researched interview questions, but a smaller, truer reason is mostly because the entire comment section of each one of those garbage YouTube videos is just people glazing Sean Evans’ “interviewing skills.” Everybody’s always like, “Oh, I’m so glad [insert celebrity here] recognized how thoughtful Sean Evans is with his questioning!” and the constant stream of the same bot ass comments saying the same bot ass thing built up a distaste with me over time until just the mention of Hot Ones has me wrinkling my nose in disgust. And the sad truth is that the show’s not even that bad (the Conan one is great because he has no respect for the format), but because everybody’s always trying to compliment the show outside of its limiting “celebrities almost die from hot sauce while the boring bald guy asks them personal questions” gimmick, my disinterest has turned into active dislike. And I guess that’s what I’m trying to say in relation to my love for The Extraordinary Adventures of the Athena Club series, in that even though I’m the biggest fan, I am aware that they’re books that have a very specific gimmick as well, and what makes this series so great is that even though the story will often delve into darker and darker places than you would expect, Theodora Goss never once forgets that the foundation is made by the wanderlust and the fun characters who go on these adventures.

I remember when I first read this book, it didn’t just blow my mind seeing all these old-timey monsters from popular fiction at the end of the 19th century into the 20th fitting all together in one narrative… but that it actually worked. Because let’s be real, it’s not like this hasn’t been tried before! We’ve got the 2004 Van Helsing movie that sucked ass and 2003's The League of Extraordinary Gentleman that sucked even more ass, so why does The Strange Case of the Alchemist’s Daughter work where all previous attempts failed? Well for one, just to state the obvious, this is a book rather than a comic or a movie. It's real literature! And outside of the fact that reading prose is my favorite medium, this normally wouldn’t have affected my opinion of the art itself, but all of these characters are directly plucked from classic literature, so I’m of the mind that in order for them to be done justice, any retelling of their tales has to exist within the confines of a book. These are book characters, so it’s only right to pay homage to them through a book, right? And just as an aside, I love how these books place a heavy emphasis on the tawdry spectacle of the works in which they were inspired by rather than trying to reinterpret them into being more deep and meaningful. Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with re-contextualizing a classic work into something more personal and introspective as we've seen with My Dear Henry by Kalynn Bayron or Local Heavens by K.M. Fajardo, but I also think it’s a lot of fun when an author has nothing but love for a genre to the point where they want to join in on the trend rather than try to make something more of it. Because outside of Frankenstein and to a lesser extent Sherlock Holmes, this series is based on literature that I assume was often considered schlocky and pulpy rather than substantive, and while I’d never call The Strange Case of the Alchemist’s Daughter and its sequels by those descriptors, you can see that there’s absolutely no insecurity within the writing style and that it knows exactly what it is; just a good time. Well great, now I'm worrying that I'm underselling the book! You should know that even though it embraces this particularly lurid style to popular fiction at the time, it still weaves together a powerful narrative that all works together in an awe-inspiring amalgam not dissimilar to Frankenstein’s Creature himself. Or you know, like a Lego house that you have all the right pieces to, but none of the correct colors. Anyway, I've probably gotten ahead of myself, because I didn’t even talk about what The Strange Case of the Alchemist’s Daughter is about. Oh no, the horror!

After the too all-too-recent death of her mother, Mary Jekyll is in dire straits as she finds herself forced to let go of all her staff in the process of figuring out how to stay afloat. At one of her increasingly frequent visits to the bank, she learns that her mother had been paying for the care of another girl named Diana Hyde at a shelter for “fallen women.” Puzzled by this conundrum, Mary decides to hire one Sherlock Holmes to help aid in unraveling the mystery of her father’s loathsome associate, Hyde, and how he relates to, or might be the cause of the recent cropping up of Jack The Ripper-esque murders happening around the city. The mystery is afoot! Through their investigation, Mary (and now Diana) learn that they and many other “monsters" are children of several mad scientists belonging to a secret alchemist society dating back to the days of Victor Frankenstein (from Dr. Jekyll to Dr. Giacomo Rappaccini), and must group together in order to find out its secrets and hopefully stop the killing of the innocent women of Whitechapel. So yeah, that’s about it! Outside of Mary Jekyll, Diana Hyde, Holmes and Watson, the cast of characters rounds out with Beatrice Rappaccini the Poison Ivy plant lady, Catherine Moreau the puma turned Englishwoman and author, and Justine Frankenstein the second creation of the egotistical college dropout, Victor Frankenstein. And I’m not going to lie, just typing out all of their names fills me with excitement because this kind of stuff is my Avengers, and just the fact that they’re all together in one cohesive narrative is incredibly cool, for lack of a better word. But what I love about this book was that it’s less a retelling of the classic tales and more a quasi sequel to them, treating the originals as an almost Marvel-like origin story where we now get to see them come together in a spectacular fashion. You can tell that this was written with respect simply due to how many hidden Easter Eggs are lying around, and they really do add flavoring to the rich history of each and every character. There's a history to this series, and it's fun how it feels like we've been dropped in the middle of a narrative similarly to how George Lucas wanted the original Star Wars to feel like an old Flash Gordon serial. This stylistic choice is shown in how Sherlock Holmes and Lestrade still have the contentious relationship they had in their books, but because the former has solved too many unsolvable cases for Lestrade not to have some sort of respect for the man, they've now arrived at a more cordial place. Or how there’s a passing mention of Catherine having thought the detective had perished in his waterfall duel with Moriarty after they have their little mind palace fight. The lore! Ugh, this book is so good, so good!

She said, “Do you remember the pain?” And I said, “How can I forget it?” But I healed.

Sorry, I know it’s starting to sound like I’m doing another ad reading, but I’m not lying when I say that this era of stories is my bread and butter. This series even has my favorite iteration of Sherlock Holmes, and you’d better believe it like Naruto! Really though, I know that when people think of the character, they imagine the Benedict Cumberbatch, unfeeling and uncaring automaton who treats everybody else like a nuisance, but that version truly is a heightened exaggeration of his worst traits. I’ve always said that I prefer the warmer and more considerate iteration depicted in The Strange Case of the Alchemist’s Daughter, but I’d actually argue that Sherlock Holmes as seen in this novel is closer to his original incarnation than most. He’s not all-knowing, and while he's still self-important, he’s more than willing to admit when he doesn’t know something. I know readers don’t associate the detective with a warm smile, but that was the one aspect of his character that I drew a direct line from this book to the original. Look, I haven’t read many Sherlock Holmes stories (just the first one), but an interesting moment that stuck in my mind was during Watson and Holmes’ first meeting where Watson expresses befuddlement at the fact that the great Sherlock Holmes had no knowledge of a specific line of thinking, and all Holmes does in return is give him a smile and let him know that it seems he has more studying to do. That’s who the character is to me, not some omniscient dick, but a man who always wants to learn and is more than able to offer up a laugh at his own expense. And though it wasn’t an inconsistency, I will say that the only surprise I had with the dude was just how willing Sherlock Holmes was to believe in the supernatural and more out there science-fiction-y stuff that happens throughout the story. But again, it’s not like this is a character flaw, as this iteration of the character is more susceptible to new information, and his logical and detective reasoning skills are still in tip-top shape throughout this novel. Now, one controversial decision made in this book’s story will have to be the (ever so) slight romance hinted at between Mary Jekyll and Sherlock Holmes himself. Like, wha~aat!? He belongs to Watson! No but really, I didn’t mind it at all, I even enjoyed it because I’ve never been a big “shipper” when it came to the Sherlock Holmes property. I’d honestly be happy with whomever he ends up with romantically (even with nobody), just as long as it’s not Irene Adler. Remember, she already has a husband, and just because Holmes is obsessed with people who can match up with him intellectually doesn’t mean they have the same complex!

Otherwise, this story is about monsters and family trauma and fatherhood and forward facing women and the pursuit of scientific discovery at the cost of one’s humanity! I just loved the way the mystery in this novel is handled, simply because author Theodora Goss knew that it was the least interesting part of the narrative. Which is a good thing, by the way, it’s good to know where your work’s greatest strengths lie so that you don’t end up focusing on the parts that would bore your audience out of their minds... like how Dardevil: Born Again spends entire episodes following characters built up on empty platitudes and buzz words rather than understanding the we’re really only here to watch Daredevil beat up dudes. Sorry, but the dynamic between Fisk and Mathew Murdock isn’t as interesting and layered as the writers seem to think it is, especially not enough to drag it out over five seasons and a whole ass decade! But yeah, normally I’m skeptical towards mysteries that add a fantasy or science-fiction element because then all the rules of the mystery genre go out the window. When anything can happen, then there’s almost no incentive for reader participation. How can I guess the killer when a rabbit could come out of a hat at any time!? That’s no fun! But because The Strange Case of the Alchemist’s Daughter puts a heavier emphasis on the adventurous aspects of the narrative, not only is that instead the most immersive part of the novel, but it also makes it so the killer reveal doesn’t feel cheap. Because the thing is, even though the big reveal is more and more obvious the longer you read, it’s also made clear that this person is the only person who could have been the culprit in order for the story to remain authentic to its own themes. And while every legacy character stays true to their origins in one way or another while also adding to the narrative seamlessly, I do find the author’s interpretation of Frankenstein to be fascinating. I’m not being sarcastic, I really mean that! And the rest of this paragraph will be a pretty big spoiler, but I will say that the depiction of Victor Frankenstein’s original creature as being a depraved incel is a bit of a flexible interpretation of the original text. Don’t get me wrong, I can see it! Throughout his entire existence he’d been treated with neglect and disgust, so it makes sense that his entire motive would be one of a controlling madman. But where I take umbrage with is in portraying Victor Frankenstein as a good father figure to Justine Frankenstein. He’s tragic, not sympathetic! Even The Creature being called: Adam Frankenstein partially bothered me because him never being given a name is a very deliberate narrative choice in the original novel. Frankenstein is about the fatherless child, and considering this book follows the same theme, “the sins of our fathers” and all that, I just wonder why the narrative couldn’t offer the same grace to The Creature?

Okay, that about does it for my weekly Frankenstein rant! Moving on I'll just say that if I could, I would spend all my time reading more and more of these books. And as much as I love them, I admit that they frustrate me endlessly due to the fact that it's only a trilogy! If any series deserves a George R.R. Martin, door-stopper sized boxset, it’s The Extraordinary Adventures of the Athena Club! I mean, if The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency gets a million sequels where Alexander McCall Smith still uses the same author picture he had since the Clinton administration, then why can’t we see Mary Jekyll and her crew on more adventures!? Well, I should just be happy that we got three unique adventures and it’d be pushing my luck to hope for more considering there are too many examples to count where a series has overstayed its welcome. Yet, I can’t help but feel like there’s more to be seen here, and I can’t imagine ever getting tired of this world or these characters! I remember there was this post on Tumblr talking about how the reason why shows like Seinfeld or Friends could go on for years is because audiences loo~ooved the characters. Sure, now it just sounds like I’m winging it at my TED Talk, “good characters make for a good story”… duh, but it sometimes feels like a lot of current stories have forgotten the basics of storytelling. That writers often get so caught up in world-building and plotting immersive experiences for the reader that they don’t even realize that audiences will be happy with anything as long as they enjoy and like the characters in them. The immersion is in relatable characters! Anybody remember when they were trying to make a classic Universal monsters cinematic universe? They were hopping on that MCU money train and tried to jump start it a couple times with Dracula: Untold and the Tom Cruise Mummy movie where he kisses a woman to death (so a normal day for that puffy faced replicant), but the reason it never took off was because the protagonists were so dull! Where was the camaraderie, the friendships, the family!? The Strange Case of the Alchemist’s Daughter understands that in order for us to get invested in these adventures, we’d first have to grow attached to the people going on them! Fun isn’t had in self-serious grays, but rather a sisterly dynamic (because they’re, you know, sisters) between the contrary Diana Hyde and the ever rational Mary Jekyll and how it’s a fully grown woman beefing with a child. Like, settle down Chappell Roan, I know Diana is annoying, but she's still a kid. Anyway, I could say more, but again, I wouldn’t want to come across as too excitable, now would I? Too late for that, I reckon. Oh well, there’s nothing wrong with wearing your heart on a sleeve every now and then, and I can’t think of a more deserving series for the occasion.

Discos don't open till after dark / And it ain't till twelve till the party really starts / And I always had to be home by ten / Right before the fun was about to begin.

[Philip · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

Clever and witty in the vein of many Victorian classics but much more accessible, if not necessarily as sophisticated.

There's a colorful cast of women based on said classics who are often charming and enjoyable to follow. Mary, the eponymous Alchemist's Daughter, is especially lovely and admirable. Her foil- and half-sister- Diana, is sometimes one-note in her perpetual disagreeableness, but always entertaining in her interactions with Mary. The inclusion of the reputable duo of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson adds another fun element, even more so because they are mainly relegated to supporting character status allowing the female cast to shine.

Goss employs the literary device of allowing her cast to interject their thoughts and reactions during the "writing" of the novel by Catherine, one of Dr. Moreau's creations. While it's cute and sometimes provides insight into the thoughts of the characters, it's not strictly necessary and comes off as more of a frivolous conceit.

The pacing is disjointed, the last third (basically all conclusion) especially, although I actually did enjoy Justine's lengthy monologue. It shows Goss's connection, love, and understanding of the source material and ended up being quite touching. Overall not incredible, but with the possibility of a sequel left wide open, (the strange case of the alchemist's daughter is never actually solved) I'm more than willing to follow the Athena Club around on their next adventure.

Posted in Mr. Philip's Library

[Megan · Rating 5 out of 5]

OBSESSED!! THIS WAS FUCKING GENIUS!! ok i need to collect my thoughts in the vlog im posing tomorrow but if you like the concept of Stalking Jack the Ripper but didnt like the execution THIS IS FOR YOU!!!

honestly,,,,, a new fave

[Mogsy · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 of 5 stars at The BiblioSanctum https://bibliosanctum.com/2017/06/20/...

“That was the first meeting of the Athena Club. … Readers who remember their classical mythology will immediately realize its significance: Athena, born from the head of her father, Zeus. We do not claim the wisdom of Athena, but we identify with her dubious parentage.”

The Strange Case of the Alchemist’s Daughter may be the latest in a long line of mashups based off of some of literature’s most famous horror and sci-fi classics, but it possesses a charm you don’t find in a lot of retellings today. The awesome quote above is one of my favorites from the book—which I just had to use to begin my review, because it manages to capture the essence of this book so perfectly, as well as the strength and spirit of the women in it.

As the story begins, we are introduced to Mary Jekyll who is in mourning for her mother, dead after years of suffering from a debilitating madness. Left with nothing to her name, Mary has no choice but to sort through some of her family’s old accounts, only to find that for years her mother had been sending money to a halfway house for “fallen women”. Following this trail, our protagonist is led to Diana Hyde, daughter of Edward Hyde, the man Mary only knows as her father’s former employee—and murderer. Mr. Hyde has been wanted for his crimes for years, and with this new development, Mary has hopes that helping the authorities capture him would mean the end of her financial troubles once she collects the reward.

It is while following up on the case that Mary ends up meeting with the famous detective Sherlock Holmes and his assistant Dr. Watson. As it so happens, the two men are also currently helping Scotland Yard investigate a string of gruesome murders in Whitechapel. Some of the victims, all street women, were brutally dismembered and one even had her brain removed. Could these murders be related to the Edward Hyde? Further digging leads Mary and Diana to find and befriend more women, all of whom have been created through experimentation by a shadowy group known as the Société des Alchimistes: Beatrice Rappaccini, raised by her father to tend to a garden of poisonous plants until she herself became poisonous to others; Catherine Moreau, a beast woman brought to life by her creator’s human-animal hybridization experiments; and last but not least, Justine Frankenstein, reanimated from the corpse of a dead girl by Dr. Frankenstein to be a female companion to his monster.

One part creative re-imagining and one part loving homage, my favorite aspect of this book is most definitely its premise, or the idea of getting the “daughters” of some of gothic literature’s most famous characters together to solve a mystery. Goss gives all the women personalities that let them stand out as unique individuals, like sensible Mary Jekyll who is the de facto leader of the group, Justine whose great physical strength and stature belies her gentle soul, or Catherine whose irreverence and independence reflects the fact she used to be a puma. My absolute favorite, however, was probably Diana—the lovable hellion who just does and says whatever she pleases, much to the chagrin of Mrs. Poole the housekeeper. Then there are of course the nods to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes and even some to Dracula by Bram Stoker. Indeed, if you are a fan of any of the referenced classics, you should have a lot of fun with this novel. It was also very clever how the story even incorporated Jack the Ripper; even though it was done in a very oblique and subtle way, the location and details behind the murders are clearly meant to make you think in that direction.

The structure and format of this tale is also interesting. The book, as we find out early on, is an account of events as told by Catherine Moreau, who among other things is an aspiring writer. For better or worse, she has also allowed her companions to chime in in reaction to everything going on in her manuscript, meaning we frequently get interruptions in the narrative ranging from humorous remarks made by the characters objecting to the way they are being portrayed, to snarky comments about the quality of Catherine’s writing. While this is all done in good fun, I admit that sometimes these asides can get a little excessive and distracting, and it took me a while to get used to them. Granted though, I can still say these are vastly preferable to pesky footnotes.

In terms of pacing, my only complaint was the drawn out conclusion. Goss had it so that each of the women were able to tell their individual stories, and for the most part, these were spread out nicely throughout the book and came in at appropriate times. The only exception was Justine. Her backstory was left until the end after the plot’s climax, piggybacked onto the denouement which I thought was a little awkward. The wrap-up section explaining the formation of the Athena Club could have been shortened too, along with the setup for their next adventure—but I’m not going to grumble too hard on this point. After all, it is foreshadowing that bodes well for the possibility of a sequel, and it’s safe to say I wouldn’t mind seeing more from this world and its characters.

A delightfully vibrant fusion of mystery and adventure, The Strange Case of the Alchemist’s Daughter will make you think about your favorite literary classics in a whole new light. I thoroughly enjoyed this novel and will be looking forward to more by Theodora Goss.

[Katie Colson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This felt like Morticia Addams was reading me a bedtime story

A found family of monsters solving crimes with Sherlock Holmes? SAY LESS!!! I beg you. I couldn't throw myself into this book fast enough or with more gusto. I am OBSESSED. This was specific brand of tea steeped perfectly. These characters are my life now.

[☘Misericordia☘ ⚡ϟ⚡⛈⚡☁ ❇️❤❣ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Q: We are modern. And, of course, monstrous . . . (c)

I read this one on a whim and am not disappointed too much.

The good:
- The banter lovely.
- The sleuthy setting.
- Love the setting and the character building.

The bad:
- Where's the info for the world-setting? Yes, I know, everyone's always crying about infodumps. Well, I love my infodumps and there's no info in here. Who are these people standing next to the grave? For example, who is this gal Diana? Why do I have to look for this unfo around the book specifically and not get it right away as soon as Diana appears in the text?
- Are all the surnames freshly out? I don't like that Jekyll / Hyde surnames were repurposed.
- I HATED the dialogue interruptions throughout the book. I'm sure they were supposed to be bantery and get the text lighty-flighty (and monstrous, of course) but they kept setting me on edge.
- We are monstrous, so very fragging monstrous. Do you still remember we're monstrous? Yeah, we're monstrous to the extent you wouldn't believe. We're the monster monstrous. ... I got tired of this trope right away and of course this kept being repeated throughout the volume...

Gosh, I'm so happy I don't live in that darn epoch!
Q:
In short, Miss Jekyll, since you have recently come of age, you may choose to marry. A young lady of your personal attractions would certainly prove acceptable to a man who is not particular about his wife’s fortune.” Mr. Guest looked at her meaningfully. ...
“Thank you, Mr. Guest,” she said, rising and extending her hand. “I’m sure you’re very wise in worldly matters and all that. And I appreciate your advice. And could you please ask your clerk to fetch my umbrella and mackintosh?” (c)

The fun quotes:
Q:
“I have no intention of going mad, at least not today.” (c)
Q:
“A lady should be able to pay her butcher’s bill,” said Mary. (c)
Q:
No wonder men did not want women to wear bloomers. What could women accomplish if they did not have to continually mind their skirts, keep them from dragging in the mud or getting trampled on the steps of an omnibus? If they had pockets! With pockets, women could conquer the world! (c)
Q:
She had longed for adventure, and now that it was happening to her, she was not sure how she felt about it. (c)
Q:
Umbrella, mackintosh, gum boots. She was prepared for the deluge. (c)
Q:
Sometimes she thought the world needed drowning. (c)
Q:
Footmen are ornamental in white stockings for dinner service, but not as useful as a good scullery maid. (c)
Q:
“Yet even a madman has method in his madness,” (c)
Q:
JUSTINE: We all need human sympathy.
DIANA: I don’t. (c)
Q:
... as though someone had decided on large and ominous as a decorating style. (c)

[Lala BooksandLala · Rating 3 out of 5]

reading vlog: https://youtu.be/YpUfxGo0vNM

[Cress · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was the first book I read for Spooktober, and I gotta say, I was disappointed. Everything pointed to me liking the premise of this book. Period, yes. Strong female leads, interested! References to a plethora of gothic monsters? HELL YEAH.

So what the hell happened?

I honestly feel as though Goss bit off more than she could chew.

First things first, the characters. They are all hollow. Every. Single. One. I felt no connection between any of the female leads and myself as a reader.They each felt like a stereotype that needed to be added in a sort of checklist. The intelligent lady, the mouthy brat, the foreign beauty, the gentle soul, the wildcat, the motherly governess, and the innocent maid. I literally hated Diana. What did the story gain from having Diana in it, outside of an obnoxious token teenager?

The plot. What plot? Nothing was resolved. Literally nothing. This felt like the first book in the Babysitter's Club, except longer and more boring. What does the Athena club do anyway outside of raising money to live off of? Don't say solve mysteries. THEY HAVE SOLVED NOTHING.

Ahem...style. Okay, I get what Goss was trying to do. I did. It works best in television or movies. Having characters interrupt in a book DOES. NOT. WORK. I'll tell you why. It pulls you out of the narrative and adds nothing. All the interruptions didn't add a damn thing. No insight. Just opinions on things that don't matter. Case in point every time Diana interrupts with "I don't sound like that." And the tangents? UGH! But wait, it gets worse. The characters tell you what happen in the story BEFORE it happens. "Like remember that one part where I got shot and nearly died, etc." And Then we find out 50 pages later what happened. WTF. You made me feel NO concern or caring! Also, what I hated, HATED, HATED! Making references to mysteries that we know jack about. It's comparable to Scooby-Doo and the gang name dropping all the monsters they've faced. But you see, WE GOT TO SEE THAT HAPPEN. NO ONE TOLD US IN THE MIDDLE OF THE EPISODE/MOVIE.

I'm not done yet.

The constant reference to the fact they're monsters. I got it the first time. The fact that they're monsters is so repeatedly drilled into my skull that every time it's brought up in the character interruptions, I couldn't help but groan. If you look at my reading notes, you can see that I counted each occurrence that I caught up until half-way through the book, where I just stopped caring to count. I caught it seven times in 200 pages.

In conclusion, this was an okay book, but an incredibly mediocre attempt to start a new series. And like one of those other reviewers who said it: One star is for the pretty cover.

This book was truly a monstrosity.
*mic drop*

[Michelle F · Rating 3 out of 5]

light spoilers, maybe

For fans of classic monster stories, this series opener is crammed full of goodies.

Strange Case... is a pastiche goulash, combining characters, events and styles from some stellar authors. The story centers on Mary Jekyll - daughter of the presumably late Dr. Henry Jekyll – as she becomes aware of what kind of scientist her father really was. The introduction of a mysterious Scientific Society allows Goss to include elements from the works of Wells, Hawthorne, Shelley, Stoker and, as this is ultimately a mystery, from Arthur Conan Doyle as well.

It is an entertaining mix. I love the homage and the predominantly female cast. As a series starter, the author has established a good basic premise for tons of mysterious adventure.

I can't pinpoint specific flaws, but this stayed in the charming and fun realm without ever rising to engrossing and great...which is perfectly fine. I am not at all disappointed, and might seek out the next book as a standby palette cleanser between more immersive reads.

[Elle Maruska · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ok I'm going to be incredibly enthusiastic here: I LOVE THIS BOOK.

Like. I love it SO HARD.

I LOVE IT.

I want more in this universe. I want more of this series immediately.

MONSTER GIRLS! MONSTER GIRLS WHO LOVE AND PROTECT EACH OTHER AND COME TOGETHER TO STOP A SOCIETY OF MEN WHO TREATED THEM AS INHUMAN LIKE I LOVE THIS

I mean I could offer criticisms I suppose but I don't want to. Because THIS BOOK is the kind of book we need more of it. We need books about girls have adventures together, girls being friends and confidants, girls who are feminine and girls who aren't, girls who are bold and girls who are shy, girls who are allowed to make mistakes, girls who are allowed to be all sorts of different things. THIS BOOK HAS SO MANY GIRLS HAVING ADVENTURES and I can't stop screaming about how much I love it.

Like the girls in this story are so well-rounded, so well-defined, and they MAKE SENSE. What they do, how they think...it all makes sense within the context of the story and the period in which it is set. ALSO THERE IS LIKE 0 ROMANCE WHICH IS MY FAVORITE THING EVER TBH. No one is distracted by irritating boys being gross. The most important thing to these girls is each other and that's so special I can't get over it.

I hope there are more books coming because I am sad that I'm finished with this one and I need MORE IMMEDIATELY.

[Jennie Damron · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have not read a book quite like this which is a delight. The writing was clever and unique considering the author is using well known/loved characters in literature. I enjoyed the mystery, but was even more delighted with the back story of each of the female characters. How they lived, what they experienced just swept me away to another world. My one complaint is there was a lot of editing errors that could have easily been avoided with misspelled words or incorrect words used in the sentence. That being said, it did not take away from enjoyment of the story itself. Think league of extraordinary gentlemen, but with female characters. Witty, clever, and a whole lot of fun.

[Bradley · Rating 4 out of 5]

In a lot of ways, this is a near-perfect arrow shot going through the hearts of all the very best penny dreadfuls, from Frankenstein to Doctor Moreau. Add all the delightful references to Dracula, Van Helsing, Hyde, (and even Lamarck!), and we've got ourselves a great mish-mash of fantasy, SF, and horror classics in one delightfully female-heavy tale that invites the heavyweight services of Sherlock in for the ride.

It really is charming. For the first half, I was entirely on board like I was watching Penny Dreadful or League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, or reading A Night in the Lonesome October. :) That kind of thing.

But while I still enjoyed the meta-writing banter between some of the main female characters, the over-plot got kinda ...tedious... near the end. Not bad, mind you, and in fact, the whole novel was a real charmer for how it drew in so many well-beloved classics, but I've never had a soft spot for the whole Moreau line.

Maybe it's because I know too much about science to really be able to love quite that much handwavium. Most of the time I can move on just fine. If I started quibbling about science in SF I might never get beyond a handful of books. :)

BUT that doesn't detract all that much from the story. It's solid, creative, and a real nostalgia-fest.

[Maria · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not sure what to say about this book. I liked the premise, I enjoyed reading it, I liked that it was a story about extraordinary women coming together as sisters. It even had Sherlock Holmes!

But something about the basic structure of it sort of threw me off. The story is punctuated by characters' comments, snippets of conversations and observations that happened over the course of the book's creation. On the one hand, it supposedly offers better insight into the personalities of the characters and makes guessing the accuracy of certain descriptions throughout a bit of a fun game.

But at the same time, these conversations inevitably appeared at the story's climaxes, and by their nature slowed down the plot considerably. Now, I'm not one to need my plots car-crash fast (I do not need to be "hurtled along" by any means), and I actually love slower paced books that center around characters and relationships more so than "plot."

But even though this is explicitly addressed during one of the character asides that "this isn't one of your thrillers, it's the story of us coming together" the basic structure of the story--and the characters involved--were...well...suited to a thriller. And it was very hard for me to reconcile the artificially (is that the right word..? Expressly...Purposely...) slow structure with the thriller it encased.

And somehow it felt like the actual structure of the writing--punctuated with character observations--overlaying a thriller--murder! dark secrets!--actually ended up damaging both the exploration of characters/how they came together as well as acting in detriment to the thriller elements themselves.

That is to say, the periodic interjections did not seem to actually add dimension to the characters, and the fact that it was a thriller they were interjecting (?) also did not help the issue. So we have this story that's not a great thriller because it moves so slow because of character interjections that are supposed to add character but--to me, mind you--fail to do so, thus creating a rather disappointing slowly-paced not-thriller (thriller) with two-dimensional characters that obviously had backstories but who somehow never seemed to come alive, repeating the same line about "monstrosity" every 5 pages, touching superficially on their opinions on everything from God to suffrage, culminating in the very confusing realization that I technically knew a lot about the characters and their differences but at the same time felt no real closeness/empathy/understanding/attachment to/with any of them.

Our main characters felt strangely indistinguishable and had the same cardboard emotional appeal, leaving me dissatisfied. I could never get a feel for them. Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson suffer the same fate, with personalities that technically exist but have no fundamental uniqueness. They reacted to every situation essentially the same (with Sherlock, of course, holding an edge in deduction and basic competence) but there was no depth somehow. It was dull where it should not have been.

But I have been harsh. I think it is worth a read. But I am not finishing this book feeling particularly attached to it, and that makes me disappointed. I wonder if it is in part because the humor didn't resonate with me as much? Ahh, maybe that's my problem.

[Brend · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yet another 1890's historical fantasy involving gruesome murders in London and resurrected bodies makes it into my favorites-list of 2022.

I would like to call it a coincidence but we're at 4 now so I think it's more of a pattern. Very telling of my character and hyper-fixations, if I say so myself.

This book felt like it was eight hundred pages, and I mean it as a compliment.

Can't wait for for some network to pick this up as a show and look at its (either not very big or not very loud since I'm not finding enough fan art on Tumblr) fandom start discussing how Justine's actress isn't tall enough of Cath's does not have eyes that feel feline-enough.

I also believe they should wait to make this into a show until we figure out how to make a time machine that actually works and bring back 14-year-old Sadie Sink to play Diana.

[Book Riot Community]

Ooooo, it’s several classic characters all in one place! Mary Jekyll is looking for her father’s old partner, the murderous Edward Hyde. If she turns him in, the reward will solve all her financial woes. Instead she finds Hyde’s daughter, Diana, and a group of other women: Beatrice Rappaccini, Catherin Moreau, and Justine Frankenstein. With the help of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, Mary and the others are going to solve the mysteries of their origins. This book is an epic nerdpurr!

Backlist bump: A Study in Charlotte by Brittany Cavellaro


Tune in to our weekly podcast dedicated to all things new books, All The Books: http://bookriot.com/listen/shows/allt...

[samantha Bookworm-on-rainydays · Rating 5 out of 5]

a really Interesting read if you love the Classics like Sherlock, and mary shelley Frankenstein,
it's a Great Book that brings to life characters that we all think we know. from Sherlock to jekyll and hyde to rappaccini's daughter,The plot/mystery is interesting (solving the Whitechapel Murders), but more interesting is the origin story of the Athena Club and its monstrous members. I am to book two.

[Rachel Schulte · Rating 2 out of 5]

I REALLY wanted to like this book, especially after all the good reviews and the NPR review. However, the book was just too over cluttered. Between the discovery of not one, not two, but five different women from previous novels with unusual "monstrous" characteristics, not to mention throwing Holmes and Watson in there, Goss had no time to focus on any character development, leading to an exciting plot with a bunch of people that I just didn't care about. I mean, it made Sherlock Holmes boring. Sherlock. Holmes. The other aspect that threw me was the layers of fantastical that, when taken in moderation would have added up to a clever book, but by the end bordered on the ridiculous. By the climactic ending scene, I couldn't even keep up with the number of absurd characters involved. If she had focused on telling one good story instead of five mediocre ones, this book would have been great. Sometimes, less is more.

[K.J. Charles]

This ought to be completely up my street with the UF mash up of various Victorian pulp icons as heroines (a Dr Moreau cat woman, Jekyll and Hyde's daughters, etc) but...not doing it. Partly because by 40% we're still introducing characters and easing into the plot, partly because I don't see the point of the device whereby the characters all comment on the writing of the novel. It's a self conscious artifice that reminds you you're reading a book, and it's stopping me empathising with anyone. Regretting not enjoying it because it's a wonderful concept but DNF at 40%.

[Anthony Ryan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Theodora Goss mines the rich legacy left by the originators of the horror story to craft a tale of monstrous but compassionate heroines banding together to battle a nefarious conspiracy in 1890s London. A enjoyable and inventive romp through the murk and mystery of Victorian monsterdom which is sure to delight fans of Kim Newman’s ‘Anno Dracula’ and Alan Moore’s ‘League of Extraordinary Gentlemen’.

[Sara (sarawithoutanH) · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a lot of fun! I look forward to continuing the series.

vlog: https://youtu.be/Wy0KTuysMpo

[rachel, x · Rating 4 out of 5]

quick thoughts:

the moment riley marie talked about this book in her vlog, i knew it was going to be a new favourite of mine too.

PROS
• fun. i read this, mostly, during my state's first proper lockdown and it was a breath of fresh air.
• found family. i sound like a broken record at this point but found family is my favourite trope. there's nothing quite like a ragtag group of misfits finding each other and making a home where they can all be their unabashed selves.
• the writing style. the book itself is written like the girls are writing an account of their adventures. catherine, a novelist, is in charge but the other characters write in the margins & interrupt when they think catherine is romanticising a certain moment or interject to say, 'no, i wasn't *scared* then, i don't get scared' or 'i was not blushing! the sun had gotten to my cheeks'. it adds this whole other layer to the story, and the banter? top notch.
• the whole cast. it is rare that i don't have a favourite narrator in a book with multiple perspectives, but the entire cast was delightful. i loved the whole crew, down to charlie & mrs poole.
• girl fighting their abusive fathers. a squad of women that society has snubbed overcoming systemic obstacles to band together and save other women from their abusive fathers? hell yeah.
• sherlock. i'm basic. i love me a sherlock retelling 🤷

CONS
• the pacing. it was a tiny bit on the dense side. i know a lot of historical fiction favour a slower pace (which i actually like), but it did stagnate a little in the middle.
• the "time-period appropriate" -ism. again, i know historical fiction tends to be as accurate to the era as possible, but i can't deny it is extremely difficult to read blatant ableism, racism & misogyny regardless. there is a fair amount of ableism and sex worker shaming as well as two downright racist sentences (as quoted below) which easily could have been edited out.

the racist comments on pages 199 & 347 respectively (in my edition):

"To those readers who are not familiar with London, who may be reading this in the wilds of America, where we hear there are bears and savages, or in the wilds of Australia, where there are also savages but no bears (unless, adds Justine, they are marsupial bears), the problem that now presented itself to Catherine and Diana was as follows."

and

"And he was excited: he had finally decided that we would go to Africa. With our superior strength, we could traverse jungles and desert that made the interior of the continent dangerous for white men. We would see what no European had ever seen. Surely the rude savages would worship us as gods."

➸ Trigger warnings for misogyny, ableism & ableist language, sex worker shaming & slurs, underage sex work recounted, domestic abuse mentioned, psychiatric hospitalisation, the suicide of a parent mentioned, suicide & suicidal ideation mentioned, alcohol consumption, pregnancy & teen pregnancy mentioned, graphic dead body & body parts, blood & gore depiction, physical injuries & illness, nonconsensual surgery mentioned, dismemberment and decapitation discussed, nonconsensual medical experimentation (central theme), death of father & mother, death of an infant recounted, murder & attempted murder (multiple on-page & recounted), strangulation, poisoning, kidnapping & confinement, animal experimentation (off-page), animal death, and poverty themes.

Blog • Trigger Warning Database • StoryGraph

[Lindsay · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fun literary mash-up set in the 1890s in the vein of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen but with the daughters of some of fiction's most well-known mad scientists as well as other figures from the literature of the time.

Miss Mary Jekyll has just buried her mother and without her mother's endowed income she faces ruin due to lack of funds. On discovering a reference in her mother's estate to money being paid for the upkeep of "Hyde" she seeks help from the well-known detective Mr Holmes to see if the reward for the murder Edward Hyde is still on offer. The mysteries uncovered from this lead to Mary discovering family and others women with peculiar origin stories who are all connected.

This book is a lot of fun, particularly because of the interactions between the various ladies that Mary encounters and befriends. The conceit of the story is that one of Mary's friends is actually writing the story and including commentary from the group throughout, so we get the amusing reactions of the characters to how the writer is depicting them and each other. This is another "found family" story that works largely because of the clear affection that each of the ladies has for each other.

This is clearly book one of a series that I will definitely be continuing with. The final chapter hints at a new addition to Mary's ladies that should prove very interesting.

[Veronique · Rating 4 out of 5]

Being a fan of 19th century classics novels, this book from Theodora Goss was always going to be one I just had to get my hands on. Mary Jekyll, after the death of her mother, finds out some very puzzling information involving her father, who passed away several years before under strange circumstances, that she cannot resist wanting to solve. Her investigation leads her on a dangerous path peopled by some very intriguing people, Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson being only two of them.

From the first, I wondered how Goss would orchestrate such a tale, using characters from the Gothic canon, inventing others, playing with the known stories, and I must say she does on the whole a very good job of it, putting together an entertaining mystery. It is in the characters themselves however where she shines the most, portraying their interactions brilliantly.

There is one thing that might not be to every one’s taste. The author creates a very unusual narrative where the main characters keep disrupting the narration with their comments on what is being told, injecting their own views on the events and how these are being illustrated. Readers will either love it or not. Personally, I did like it very much, especially since it didn’t just enrich each personality and provide a comical angle (the nascent relationship between Mary and Diana is hilarious), but also reflected on the art of writing. It always amazes me how a technique that breaks the suspense of disbelief is used here to strengthen it...

Finally, do you need to have read the texts referred to here? Not necessarily, but you will enjoy this book a lot more if you have. (List:
Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
The Island of Dr. Moreau by HG Wells
Rappaccini’s Daughter by Nathaniel Hawthorne (short story)
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
Dracula by Bram Stoker

[Howard · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 Stars for The Strange Case of the Alchemist’s Daughter (audiobook) by Theodora Gross read by Kate Reading.

I think the story suffered from trying to have every famous 19th century literary character thrown in. It’s an interesting idea but difficult to pull off. The author has a lot of witty dialogue to try and keep up with. And how far can the author stray from the original author’s ideas before this a rip off instead of fan fiction?

[Auntie Terror · Rating 2 out of 5]

It has been a while since I experienced such a contrast between my expectations of a book and the reality of reading it. I'll still admit freely that the idea of it is a rather brilliant one, in my opinion - it's worth a whole star for me. Otherwise I'd have given it one star.

Gaslamp fantasy is one of my absolute favourites concerning sub-genres. I have had a soft spot for Victorian literature ever since I was 12 or 13 and had learnt English well enough to read - of all things - Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories in the original version (which has resulted in a deep affection almost 'akin to love' - to mini-quote from A Scandal in Bohemia - for the detective and the whole canon). I know all of the heroines' 'origin' stories as well as a number of other gothic tales and novels. I even studied English literature for a while... This series should have been for me!

But alas!, it wasn't. It wasn't at all - and, to a certain degree I suppose it was exactly because of what I just explained about myself as a reader.

First of all: the Sherlock Holmes dilemma.
I don't think that modern authors taking up the character(s) and "re-using" them is per se a crime or sacrilege. There are examples where it was done absolutely brilliantly in my opinion (i.e. The House of Silk) - where the author paid attention and hommage to the original material. In this case it felt like the author hadn't even bothered to read more than (perhaps) one of the short stories and decided she would figure the rest out by watching a few recent action movies vaguely based on the books. This usually doesn't work when people give a book presentation at school based on this method, and it didn't work here either.
Another part of the problem is that the main reason for Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson to be dragged into this seems to have been to use them as love interests, the first for the allegedly exceptionally logical and clever Mary Jekyll, the second possibly for Beatrice Rappaccini, even if it might be only as a kind of cruel comic relief. While Dr. Watson is known to have an interest in women, Sherlock Holmes is basically famous for not having that, no matter what else he might or might not experience concerning more tender passions. But what was far more irritating to me is that a short research on Wikipedia even would have told the author that Sherlock Holmes would have to be over fourty in her story (because he'd be only available in London again after 1894 due to the small matter of him pretending to be dead after ridding the world of the late Professor Moriarty - but who's counting inconsistencies?), about twice the age of his supposed inamorata who is 21. And while Miss Rappaccini might perhaps be slightly older than that, Dr. Watson also is the older of the two men, and recently widowed... Call me unromantic and closeminded - but even Jane Austen's Mr Knightley would have been a few years closer to Emma than that. This is getting close to Jane Eyre and Mr Rochester - and look how well that went!
Honestly, the group of young women would have been totally fine (and capable of solving this mystery) with hardly any changes to the storyline if Holmes and Watson were just taken out of the equation altogether. They feel obsolete and unnecessary. And I'm also not a fan of love stories without 'chemistry' - there could have been far more interesting and believable combinations from the large group of characters more elementary to the plot (which might have made the book less 'straight as a ruler', though).

Secondly: the time paradox.
This might definitely be a point hardly anyone gets upset over aside from me, I'll own that, and happily. When I read books that are set in (pseudo)historical times, I need to see that reflected in the language as well as the attitude of the characters (aside from, obviously, the 'scenery' in respect to dress codes, technical development, etc.) or I won't be able to 'believe' it. This book is hardly the first case of an author failing there for me - and it isn't the worst case I've seen. But still:
Mary Jekyll, for the first few chapters, wasn't even doing too badly in that respect - until she... met people. Which is a pity because she gets to meet a lot of them. And in this first book of a series at least she's the only character who gets to have more than one to two character traits and thus to feel like more than a stock character - at least that's how it felt to me. It works even less for the rest. It felt as if there was so much attention given to making each character 'quirky' in a different way that giving them depth or a historically believable attitude was somehow forgotten in the process.
The problem is that there are simply too many historically contemporary examples (even outside the 'origin' narrations of the characters) of Victorian social life and etiquette in literature to not notice when an author fails by using the period merely decorationally without managing to get the characters to behave, well, in character.

Thirdly (and finally): the author's distrust in the reader.
Again, this might well be a pet peeve of mine, and mine only. But when an author takes the time to place hints for the reader, maybe even not that subtly at times, to come to the right conclusions - maybe don't have characters state the obvious again, and again, and again, just in case somebody missed all the broad hints because they somehow managed to read with their eyes shut? Also, it doesn't necessarily make the reader believe in a character's brilliance of mind if they only get to a certain explanation/solution half a book after the reader did... An especially prominent example for this were the interjections into the story (which I found quite interesting in the beginning but learnt to be wary of later because they turned into a mixture of 'captain obvious's corner', 'tell-don't show-theatre' and a less humourous version of the 'Mythenmetz'sche Abschweifung').

To sum it all up again, this book wasn't for me, and I will not continue the series for my own peace of mind. And I feel somewhat cheated for that.

[Wren (fablesandwren) · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Cheerful Wednesday Book Club Pick for May 2018

Hey guys! I'm so excited for this book! I literally know nothing about what this is going to be, and I am kind of living for the surprise of it! Here is the schedule for this read.

All of these days are Wednesdays, because I thought that was a fun idea:
May 09: 01-05
May 16: 06-10
May 23: 11-15
May 30: 16-21

And we are back to actual chapters! The last two books have been great, but they have been in different formats. So we finally have chapters to go by now, and I am so excited about it! Who is joining:

June Pick: Aru Shah and the End of Time (Pandava Quartet, #1)
I AM SO EXCITED FOR THIS! MIDDLE GRADE FOR THE WIN!

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