What do you think?
Rate this book
Things in Jars
Bridie Devine—female detective extraordinaire—is confronted with the most baffling puzzle the kidnapping of Christabel Berwick, secret daughter of Sir Edmund Athelstan Berwick, and a peculiar child whose reputed supernatural powers have captured the unwanted attention of collectors trading curiosities in this age of discovery.Winding her way through the labyrinthine, sooty streets of Victorian London, Bridie won’t rest until she finds the young girl, even if it means unearthing a past that she’d rather keep buried. Luckily, her search is aided by an enchanting cast of characters, including a seven-foot tall housemaid; a melancholic, tattoo-covered ghost; and an avuncular apothecary. But secrets abound in this foggy underworld where spectacle is king and nothing is quite what it seems.Blending darkness and light, history and folklore, Things in Jars is a spellbinding Gothic mystery that collapses the boundary between fact and fairy tale to stunning effect and explores what it means to be human in inhumane times.
416 pages, Paperback
First published April 4, 2019
2892 people are currently reading
54047 people want to read
About the author
Jess Kidd
19 books2,476 followersJess Kidd was brought up in London as part of a large family from county Mayo and has been praised for her unique fictional voice. Her debut, Himself, was shortlisted for the Irish Book Awards in 2016. She won the Costa Short Story Award the same year. Her second novel, The Hoarder, published as Mr. Flood's Last Resort in the U.S. and Canada was shortlisted for the Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year 2019. Both books were BBC Radio 2 Book Club Picks. Her latest book, the Victorian detective tale Things in Jars, has been released to critical acclaim. Jess’s work has been described as ‘Gabriel García Márquez meets The Pogues.’
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 3,899 reviews
July 18, 2020
Five stars and a statue goes to best portrayed Victorian London book !
This is incredible combination of humor, kitsch, folklore with the writer’s talented and never ending imagination.
We meet one of the most interesting heroines, Bride Devine , a woman detective, wearing a dagger strapped to her thigh, smoking pipe, solving murders by reading corpses and talking with ghosts.
It seems like one of the heroes , also the part of love triangle is Ruby Doyle, champion boxer who is also dead.
Mostly it was frivolous book is written with great sense of humor and creativity. But we have to admit that it is also evil one with gory murder scenes , shocking, cruel, disturbing.
I enjoyed the poetic descriptions of Victorian London, immaculate writing and rich, layered, perfectly developed characterization.
So happy to find a gifted writer. Cannot wait to read more books !
blog
instagram
facebook
twitter
This is incredible combination of humor, kitsch, folklore with the writer’s talented and never ending imagination.
We meet one of the most interesting heroines, Bride Devine , a woman detective, wearing a dagger strapped to her thigh, smoking pipe, solving murders by reading corpses and talking with ghosts.
It seems like one of the heroes , also the part of love triangle is Ruby Doyle, champion boxer who is also dead.
Mostly it was frivolous book is written with great sense of humor and creativity. But we have to admit that it is also evil one with gory murder scenes , shocking, cruel, disturbing.
I enjoyed the poetic descriptions of Victorian London, immaculate writing and rich, layered, perfectly developed characterization.
So happy to find a gifted writer. Cannot wait to read more books !
blog
February 25, 2019
Jess Kidd shifts direction in her 3rd novel setting it in Victorian times with its inherent brutality and inhumanity, teeming with villains, murderers, the arrogance of killing medics, and ruthless amoral gentlemen anatomy collectors, hungry for what should not be alive. There are Things in Jars, with their ability to disturb the natural order of things, life and death, ashes to ashes, time in supension, pickling yesterday, holding eternity in a jar. Into this latest historical novel, Kidd brings her trademark elements, Irish folklore, superstitions, ghosts, the eccentric, her stellar female characters, with her standout lyrical prose that enchants and enthralls. It is 1863 and London is marked by crime, disease, grime, violence, stink and penury. Addicted to smoking experimental concoctions by Prudhoe in her pipe, the red haired Bridie Devine is haunted by her inability to prevent the death of a child in her last case. With her now battered reputation, it is a surprise when Sir Edmund Berwick hires her to find his kidnapped 6 year old daughter, Christobel.
Only Christobel is no ordinary child, with extraordinary abilities, playing with memories, eyes that see too much, and pike's teeth that can wreak serious damage. This time Bridie is determined not to fail a child, aided by her magnificently gigantic maid, Cora, endowed with her thick and glossy facial hair, and the ghost of the love lorn illustrated Ruby, a prizefighter, claiming to know Bridie, although she is doubtful of this fact. In a narrative that goes back and forth in time to reveal Bridie's childhood of coming over from Ireland, collecting corpses with Gan, and her time as laboratory assistant to Dr John Eames at Albery Hall, wearing the clothes of the dead Lydia, links poke their heads from Bridie's past to trouble her in her present investigations. There are colourful characters galore, such as the predatory and sly Mrs Bibby, born for bad business, with the tooth and claws and the backbone for it, and the viciously dangerous and manipulative Gideon. In a story that takes in walled in women and children and 'the Winter Mermaid’, there are gruesome murders, double dealing and avarice, and Bridie's life is endangered as a deadly foe comes back from the dead. In the meantime, Londoners cower with fear and horror as lost rivers are resurgent, battered by never ending biblical rains as the city floods.
Once again, Jess Kidd beguiles and charms with her gifts as a storyteller, her shift to the Victorian era is a sublime decision, as the era positively drips with gothic elements that serve a veritable feast for Kidd's imagination. This includes the ravens, experimental potions, the penchant for curiosities, a medical profession that is unhindered by anything remotely ethical, and the corrupt 'scientific' anatomy collectors desperate to acquire living anomalies by any means necessary and preserve them in their jars. However, it is in the mix of the fantastical, Irish folklore such as the merrow, with the everyday, and Kidd's remarkable talents in characterisation that make her novels a joy to read, and ensures that her readership will continue to grow. This is compulsive and magical reading fare, such infernally dark matter, but shot through with light by Bridie, Cora, Ruby and Inspector Valentine Rose. I cannot describe how keen I am to get my hands on the next book Kidd writes. So, what is left to say? Just the small matter of this book coming highly recommended! Many thanks to Canongate for an ARC.
Only Christobel is no ordinary child, with extraordinary abilities, playing with memories, eyes that see too much, and pike's teeth that can wreak serious damage. This time Bridie is determined not to fail a child, aided by her magnificently gigantic maid, Cora, endowed with her thick and glossy facial hair, and the ghost of the love lorn illustrated Ruby, a prizefighter, claiming to know Bridie, although she is doubtful of this fact. In a narrative that goes back and forth in time to reveal Bridie's childhood of coming over from Ireland, collecting corpses with Gan, and her time as laboratory assistant to Dr John Eames at Albery Hall, wearing the clothes of the dead Lydia, links poke their heads from Bridie's past to trouble her in her present investigations. There are colourful characters galore, such as the predatory and sly Mrs Bibby, born for bad business, with the tooth and claws and the backbone for it, and the viciously dangerous and manipulative Gideon. In a story that takes in walled in women and children and 'the Winter Mermaid’, there are gruesome murders, double dealing and avarice, and Bridie's life is endangered as a deadly foe comes back from the dead. In the meantime, Londoners cower with fear and horror as lost rivers are resurgent, battered by never ending biblical rains as the city floods.
Once again, Jess Kidd beguiles and charms with her gifts as a storyteller, her shift to the Victorian era is a sublime decision, as the era positively drips with gothic elements that serve a veritable feast for Kidd's imagination. This includes the ravens, experimental potions, the penchant for curiosities, a medical profession that is unhindered by anything remotely ethical, and the corrupt 'scientific' anatomy collectors desperate to acquire living anomalies by any means necessary and preserve them in their jars. However, it is in the mix of the fantastical, Irish folklore such as the merrow, with the everyday, and Kidd's remarkable talents in characterisation that make her novels a joy to read, and ensures that her readership will continue to grow. This is compulsive and magical reading fare, such infernally dark matter, but shot through with light by Bridie, Cora, Ruby and Inspector Valentine Rose. I cannot describe how keen I am to get my hands on the next book Kidd writes. So, what is left to say? Just the small matter of this book coming highly recommended! Many thanks to Canongate for an ARC.
March 6, 2021
Be sure to visit Bantering Books to read all my latest reviews.
“There are things in jars.”
(Note: For optimal effect, the above quote should be read in a whispery, quivery, British-accented voice.)
Oh yes. There are many, many things in jars between the pages of Jess Kidd’s aptly titled novel -- and they are all so brilliantly and twistedly delightful.
Bridie Devine, “pipe-smoking detective extraordinaire,” has just accepted quite the unusual case. Christabel Berwick, the secret daughter of Sir Edmund Athelstan Berwick, has been kidnapped right out from under the Baronet’s nose. Rumored to possess extraordinary mythical powers, it appears that Christabel may have attracted the unfortunate attention of those who specialize in the collection of peculiarities.
Urged on by the fatherly desperation of Sir Berwick, Bridie takes to the streets of Victorian London, determined to locate the young girl. Fortunately, Bridie has help from two unusual allies – Cora, Bridie’s seven-foot-tall giantess housemaid, and Ruby, a tattooed ghost from Bridie’s past. Together, the eccentric threesome must race against time to save Christabel from the clutches of those who wish to add one more prized possession to their cabinets of curiosities.
Earlier this year, I had the profound pleasure of reading Kidd’s debut novel, Himself, and I fell utterly in love with her writing. I adored the lovely mix of mystery and magical realism of the story; I was amazed by how skillfully the narrative was weaved. I discovered that Kidd’s writing is breathtakingly beautiful.
Since then, I have eagerly awaited my opportunity to read Things in Jars. My excitement and anticipation for this book have been difficult to contain. I have known without doubt that Kidd would not disappoint. I have known I would love every magnificent word of it.
And correct, I was.
Things in Jars is captivating. It is a clever, wonderfully creative, and mesmerizing gothic mystery. Masterfully blending magical realism and Irish folklore with the paranormal, Kidd tells a tale that is both unique and fantastical. I found myself completely under Kidd’s spell, wholly immersed in the enchantment of the story.
Kidd’s writing has a very whimsical air to it. (In my review of Himself, I even went so far as to compare her to Neil Gaiman – and I still fully stand behind that assessment.) Her prose is gorgeously lyrical and elegantly readable. All major and minor characters are fully developed, likable, and memorable. (I dare you to not love Bridie, Cora, and Ruby. I double dare you, even.)
Kidd establishes setting like no other – you can literally see, hear, feel, taste, and smell Victorian London, in all its dreary, dirty glory. (Although, I do think at times she gets a bit overly descriptive of certain scenes, to the point where the reader is dropped out of the story for a short period due to the large influx of information. But a minor complaint.) She sets a very wry, witty tone to the narrative, and she has such a knack for infusing warmth and humor into what is, indeed, an extremely dark story.
Aah yes . . . the darkness. Be forewarned -- Things in Jars is not for the faint of heart. It is brutal and gruesome. It is bloody and gritty. There are scenes of disturbing animal cruelty and graphic surgical procedures. There is violence against women. (One violent scene against a female character, I found particularly bothersome because it seemed a bit gratuitous and unnecessary to the story. I could’ve done without it.)
To be certain, Things in Jars is not without its horrors. And know that these horrors make for squeamish moments of reading.
But to Kidd’s credit, she somehow manages to deftly offset all that darkness with light. Again, her writing is so charming and funny, and she brings such whimsy to the story, that it’s almost as if she masks, or cloaks, the gruesomeness. Or sort of smudges the edges of the blackness to where it all becomes a bit fuzzy. Or gently nudges the reader’s focus more towards the light, rather than the dark. It’s quite remarkable, the perfect balancing act she achieves between such a stark dichotomy.
And that melding of dark and light is part of what makes Things in Jars such a special read.
Mystery lovers, magical realism lovers, just plain ol’ good fiction lovers – do not miss this one. I wholeheartedly recommend it . . . and hope that this will not be our first and only adventure with Bridie Devine.
May there be many more to come.
Bantering Books
Instagram
Twitter
Facebook
“There are things in jars.”
(Note: For optimal effect, the above quote should be read in a whispery, quivery, British-accented voice.)
Oh yes. There are many, many things in jars between the pages of Jess Kidd’s aptly titled novel -- and they are all so brilliantly and twistedly delightful.
Bridie Devine, “pipe-smoking detective extraordinaire,” has just accepted quite the unusual case. Christabel Berwick, the secret daughter of Sir Edmund Athelstan Berwick, has been kidnapped right out from under the Baronet’s nose. Rumored to possess extraordinary mythical powers, it appears that Christabel may have attracted the unfortunate attention of those who specialize in the collection of peculiarities.
Urged on by the fatherly desperation of Sir Berwick, Bridie takes to the streets of Victorian London, determined to locate the young girl. Fortunately, Bridie has help from two unusual allies – Cora, Bridie’s seven-foot-tall giantess housemaid, and Ruby, a tattooed ghost from Bridie’s past. Together, the eccentric threesome must race against time to save Christabel from the clutches of those who wish to add one more prized possession to their cabinets of curiosities.
Earlier this year, I had the profound pleasure of reading Kidd’s debut novel, Himself, and I fell utterly in love with her writing. I adored the lovely mix of mystery and magical realism of the story; I was amazed by how skillfully the narrative was weaved. I discovered that Kidd’s writing is breathtakingly beautiful.
Since then, I have eagerly awaited my opportunity to read Things in Jars. My excitement and anticipation for this book have been difficult to contain. I have known without doubt that Kidd would not disappoint. I have known I would love every magnificent word of it.
And correct, I was.
Things in Jars is captivating. It is a clever, wonderfully creative, and mesmerizing gothic mystery. Masterfully blending magical realism and Irish folklore with the paranormal, Kidd tells a tale that is both unique and fantastical. I found myself completely under Kidd’s spell, wholly immersed in the enchantment of the story.
Kidd’s writing has a very whimsical air to it. (In my review of Himself, I even went so far as to compare her to Neil Gaiman – and I still fully stand behind that assessment.) Her prose is gorgeously lyrical and elegantly readable. All major and minor characters are fully developed, likable, and memorable. (I dare you to not love Bridie, Cora, and Ruby. I double dare you, even.)
Kidd establishes setting like no other – you can literally see, hear, feel, taste, and smell Victorian London, in all its dreary, dirty glory. (Although, I do think at times she gets a bit overly descriptive of certain scenes, to the point where the reader is dropped out of the story for a short period due to the large influx of information. But a minor complaint.) She sets a very wry, witty tone to the narrative, and she has such a knack for infusing warmth and humor into what is, indeed, an extremely dark story.
Aah yes . . . the darkness. Be forewarned -- Things in Jars is not for the faint of heart. It is brutal and gruesome. It is bloody and gritty. There are scenes of disturbing animal cruelty and graphic surgical procedures. There is violence against women. (One violent scene against a female character, I found particularly bothersome because it seemed a bit gratuitous and unnecessary to the story. I could’ve done without it.)
To be certain, Things in Jars is not without its horrors. And know that these horrors make for squeamish moments of reading.
But to Kidd’s credit, she somehow manages to deftly offset all that darkness with light. Again, her writing is so charming and funny, and she brings such whimsy to the story, that it’s almost as if she masks, or cloaks, the gruesomeness. Or sort of smudges the edges of the blackness to where it all becomes a bit fuzzy. Or gently nudges the reader’s focus more towards the light, rather than the dark. It’s quite remarkable, the perfect balancing act she achieves between such a stark dichotomy.
And that melding of dark and light is part of what makes Things in Jars such a special read.
Mystery lovers, magical realism lovers, just plain ol’ good fiction lovers – do not miss this one. I wholeheartedly recommend it . . . and hope that this will not be our first and only adventure with Bridie Devine.
May there be many more to come.
Bantering Books
January 25, 2024
A cloth covers the jar that Bridie took from the bookcase in the nursery, and Ruby is thankful for this. For the contents have the ability to rearrange even a dead man’s sense of reality. As with all terrible, wondrous sights, there is a jolt of shock, then a hypnotic fascination, then the uneasy queasiness, then the whole thing starts again; the desire to look and the desire never to have looked in the first place.1860s London, the prime of the Victorian age. About fifteen years before Sherlock Holmes begins using his talents to suss truth from mystery, Bridie applies her peculiar talents to helping the police in cases of an unusual nature. A sign outside her door announces:
Mrs Devinebut she is known mostly for her ability to discern the cause of death, when simple observation will not suffice. She would do as well with a sign that says Investigator of the Bizarre. Her Scotland Yard contact and sometime employer is one Inspector Valentine Rose, and business is brisk.
Domestic Investigations
Minor surgery (Esp. Boils, Warts, Extractions)
Discretion Assured
London is awash with the freshly murdered. Bodies appear hourly, blooming in doorways with their throats cut, prone in alleyways with the head knocked in. Half-burnt in hearths and garroted in garrets, folded into trunks or bobbing about in the Thames, great bloated shoals of them.She is called on to look into inexplicable deaths, primarily among the flotsam of society. London has been undergoing the installation of a world class sewer system, and diggings have turned up some extremely cold cases. The latest calls her to a crypt in Highgate Chapel. A mother and child have been unearthed, the child having significant bodily abnormalities. Around the same time, a dodgy-seeming doctor comes a-calling, seeking her assistance on behalf of his patron, Sir Edmund Athestan Berwick. Seems the baronet’s daughter has been kidnapped. Going to the police is not really an option. And the game is afoot. Any chance the two cases are linked?
Jess Kidd - image from Metro.
The purloined child, Christabel, has some peculiarities of her own.
The man, looking up, hesitates and the child bites him, a nip of surprising sharpness. He pulls his hand away in surprise and sees a line of puncture holes, small but deep…The man stands, dazed, flexing his hand. Red lines track from palm to wrist to elbow, the teeth marks turn mulberry, then black…What kind of child bites like this, like a rat? He imagines her venom—he feels it—coursing through him …A blistering poison spreads, a sudden fire burning itself out as it travels…All- the time the creature watches him, her eyes darkening—a trick of lamplight, surely!...He would scream if he could, but he can only reach out. He lies gasping like a landed fish.Poor unfortunate soul.
Image from The Times
With Sherlockian insight, a talent for disguises, and lots of shoe leather, Bridie sets about following leads and examining clues trying to get to the bottom of a case that is unusually fishy. Like that later consulting detective, Bridie smokes a pipe, which is often enlivened by substances other than pure tobacco, things with names such as Mystery Caravan or Fairground Riot, concocted by Dr. Rumhold Fortitude Prudhoe, a close friend. She shares her quarters with a particularly helpful assistant, the seven-foot-tall Cora Butter, who asks more than once whether Bridie would like this or that person held upside down. The medical bag Bridie totes is her own. The other frequent companion in her investigations is a dead man. While on the job at Highgate Chapel, he first appeared to her in the attached graveyard, notable not only for his transparency, but for his indecorous attire. Ruby Doyle had been a renowned boxer in his day, and appears in shorts, shirtless, sporting a cocked top hat, an impressive handlebar moustache, muscles aplenty, and a considerable number of tattoos, with peculiarities all their own. He seems to know Bridie quite well. One of the mysteries of the book is why she does not seem to remember him, particularly as she finds him very, very attractive.
Tom Hardy - add a handlebar moustache, top hat, and some more tats, and Kidd sees him as Ruby
The supporting cast is a delight. Lee refers to those who work with her as Bridie’s Victorian A-team. Beyond those noted above there is a criminal circus owner with a weakness for strong women, psycho killers of both the male and female persuasion, a misshapen sniveling abettor who could have snuck out of a Dickens novel to put some time in here, an honorable street urchin, orphans, a mysterious woman who may be haunting the baronet, and plenty more.
The story is told in two timelines. Bridie investigates the taking of Christabel in 1863, and we get looks back into Bridie’s childhood from 1837 to 1843, the earlier period explaining much of what is to come twenty years later. And explaining how Bridie came to have the skills she possesses. Bridie was born in Ireland, like the author, but I expect Jess Lee’s transition to life in London was a tad less fraught.
Image from Foodiggity.com
Among other things, Kidd is interested in presenting a realistic portrait of the period. ( I…wanted to give a basis of a real, gritty, accurate portrayal of Victorian London.) Visually, she offers panoramic looks through the dark eyes of ravens, and Bridie’s pedestrian peregrinations, particularly through less-than-posh parts of the city. She offers a particularly effective olfactory perspective as well.
Breathe in—but not too deeply. Follow the fulsome fumes from the tanners and the reek from the brewery, butterscotch rotten, drifting across Seven Dials. Keep on past the mothballs and the cheap tailor’s and turn left at the singed silk of the maddened hatter. Just beyond, you’ll detect the unwashed crotch of the overworked prostitute and the Christian sweat of the charwoman. On every inhale a shifting scale of onions and scalded milk, chrysanthemums and spiced apple, broiled meat and wet straw, and the sudden stench of the Thames as the wind changes direction and blows up the knotted backstreets. Above all, you may notice the rich and sickening chorus of shit.She was greatly influenced by journalist William Mayhew’s encyclopedic 1851 book London Labour and the London Poor. There is a look at the jailhouse, which appears to be guarded by particularly corrupt versions of Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum. Toss in, (or dig up) some resurrectionists, too. Part of the Victorian culture was a craze for collecting exotic things. One story that fed her interest was that of The Irish Giant, an exceptionally tall gent (7’7”) who became the talk of London for a brief time. But after his early demise, and despite his specific instructions to the contrary, his remains were obtained by a collector and put on display. There is a link to this tale in EXTRA STUFF.
Image from Traveldarkly.com
Lee is also interested in Irish folklore and partakes of that richly for the core element of the story. The incorporation of this element brings with it the main fantasy strand of the novel. One look at the cover of the book will inform you that there be mermaids (or something akin) here. Lee adds additional magical elements, as such critters appear here to have considerable power to influence the world about them, and specific powers that we would never associate with The Little Mermaid, although, considering the things we see in jars, we might have to reconsider the implications of the song Part of Your World:
Look at this stuffHmmmmmm.
Isn't it neat?
Wouldn't you think my collection's complete?
Wouldn't you think I'm the girl
The girl who has ev'rything?
Look at this trove
Treasures untold
How many wonders can one cavern hold?
Lookin' around here you'd think
(Sure) she's got everything
Image from Klyker.com
There is considerable humor in Things in Jars.
Her spectacularly ugly bonnet is curled up before the fire, bristling with feathers. She refused to give it up into the hands of the butler. Not that the butler was overeager to take it. If it comes alive, Sir Edmund thinks, he will do for it with the poker.My particular LOL favorite is the prayer young Bridie offers up at bedtime.
God grant eternal rest to Mammy, Daddy, James, John, Theresa, Margaret, Ellen, and little baby Owen. God grant that bastard Paddy Fadden a kick up his hole and severe death to him and his gang, of a slow and terrible variety.How could you not absolutely love such a child?
The disappointments in Things in Jars were few. I wish there had been more provision of clues throughout the book about what the deal was with Ruby. I was ok with the explanation, but it needed a better support structure. A bit more background on Cora would have been welcome. One actual gripe was a scene in which Bridie falls asleep while on the job. No way would this have happened. Booo! Almost all the violence occurs off-stage. In addition to one event described in a quote from the book in the review, we are shown the beginning of one attack by a ruffian on a lady. Tender souls might turn away. That’s really about it for such things.
Image from Nickcook.net
But the delights in Things in Jars could fill a wing of the British Museum. Bridie is a delicious lead, tough as nails without being impervious, bright, with a solid background that explains how she knows what she knows. She is a lot of fun to follow. The Holmesian parallels are a treat. The supporting cast is like a three-ring circus, in the best possible way, diverse, interesting, and fun to watch (both the light and the dark). We feel the fear when appropriate, and see Bridie’s affection for Ruby grow. A taste of Irish folklore is both creepy and educational, and Lee’s portrait of 19th century London offers an exceptionally immersive experience. You really get a feel (and smell) of being there. A real-world mystery with fabulous elements of fantasy. In short, Things in Jars is an absolute delight. For the hours you are reading this book you will be part of that world.
Review first posted – January 17, 2020
Publication date – February 4, 2020
I received an ARE of this book from Atria in return for some specimens I have been keeping in a special place in the
=============================EXTRA STUFF
Links to the author’s personal, Twitter, Goodreads, Instagram and FB pages
My review of a 2023 book by Kidd
-----The Night Ship
Interviews
-----Savidge Reads - Sinister & Supernatural Shenanigans with Jess Kidd - by Simon Savidge
-----Stitcher - S3E4 – Chatting with Jess Kidd - audio – 1:29:12 – by Tim Clare – you can safely begin at about 46:00 for a focus on Jars
-----Well, not an interview, really, but a piece Kidd wrote for LitHub on her favorite ghost stories - Books That Blur the Lines Between Living and Dead
Items of Interest
-----Waterstones - A look at the Operating Theater - Kidd gives a tour
-----Writing i.e. - On Writing Things in Jars by Jess Kidd
-----Gutenberg - London Labour and the London Poor (1851) by William Mayhew
-----Joseph Bazalgette - engineer of the massive sewer works in London
-----Otherworldly Oracle - Mermen Legends. – a fun bit of fluff
-----Wikipedia - The Irish Giant
October 27, 2019
“Here is time held in suspension. Yesterday pickled. Eternity in a jar.”
In Things in Jars, A 7-foot tall bearded parlor maid, mythical sea monsters, a ghost, and a winter mermaid are all brought together by a female pipe-smoking detective in Victorian London to solve the kidnapping of a mysterious child.
When a child with supposed supernatural powers is kidnapped, Detective Bridie Devine is commissioned to find her. Bridie's sleuthing abilities lead her into the dark underbelly of nineteenth-century London where she encounters a criminal element obsessed with possessing the world’s oddities. Dead or alive, there is a price on the head of those who are different and don't fit societal norms.
Part mystery, part social commentary, part fairy tale, Things in Jars had me completely enthralled. Jess Kidd encompasses all of the strange eccentricities of the Victorians. In Bridie, Ruby, a dead boxer, and Cora, a 7-foot tall parlor maid, she creates fascinating and multi-dimensional characters. I hope to see them again in a future novel. Kidd seamlessly weaves together a story filled with magic, strong women, and those who long to possess those who are different. I LOVED loved loved every minute of this book. It is strange, eccentric, and wonderfully weird!
This is definitely one of the best books I have read in 2019!
I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
In Things in Jars, A 7-foot tall bearded parlor maid, mythical sea monsters, a ghost, and a winter mermaid are all brought together by a female pipe-smoking detective in Victorian London to solve the kidnapping of a mysterious child.
When a child with supposed supernatural powers is kidnapped, Detective Bridie Devine is commissioned to find her. Bridie's sleuthing abilities lead her into the dark underbelly of nineteenth-century London where she encounters a criminal element obsessed with possessing the world’s oddities. Dead or alive, there is a price on the head of those who are different and don't fit societal norms.
Part mystery, part social commentary, part fairy tale, Things in Jars had me completely enthralled. Jess Kidd encompasses all of the strange eccentricities of the Victorians. In Bridie, Ruby, a dead boxer, and Cora, a 7-foot tall parlor maid, she creates fascinating and multi-dimensional characters. I hope to see them again in a future novel. Kidd seamlessly weaves together a story filled with magic, strong women, and those who long to possess those who are different. I LOVED loved loved every minute of this book. It is strange, eccentric, and wonderfully weird!
This is definitely one of the best books I have read in 2019!
I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
December 20, 2024
But a mermaid has no tears, and therefore she suffers so much more.
—Hans Christian Andersen, The Little Mermaid
I'm a huge fan of Jess Kidd's exquisite, playful writing and KERPOW, what a start! Her vivid prologue was one of the finest things I've read in a long time. Gadzooks! I shouted. That alone was worth the entrance fee.
The book is set in a Victorian London that Dickens might have portrayed: one that is theatrically grotesque and wonderfully atmospheric, whose slums are as lively as a blanket full of lice. Our heroine is special detective Bridie Devine, a dynamic pipe-smoking woman of around thirty years of age. She wears the ugliest bonnet in Christendom and can drink most men under a table.
Ms Devine - womankind's answer to Sherlock Holmes - has a psychic talent for reading corpses that have met with inexplicable deaths. The author describes her as being a 'woman made from boot polish and pipe smoke' (Kidd's female characters are often gloriously independent, which I love).
Devine's latest case concerns the kidnapping of a Baronet's daughter, Christabel Berwick, a pike-toothed child who smells of the sea and is kept shackled and hidden in a locked nursery.
The magical realism herein is precisely as it should be – dark, imaginative, irreverent and wryly amusing. To explain this thriller/mystery any further would be to divulge its silty, slippery secrets.
It frustrates me that certain putty-fingered authors find themselves on Booker shortlists when über talented Jess Kidd can write their socks off. With that said, I'm not altogether sure why she felt the need to hyphenate words that shouldn’t be hyphenated: church-yard; crest-fallen; dumb-founded; gas-lights… Perhaps she was going for a Victorian style of writing?
Disappointingly, the story began to lose its cut and thrust in the middle stages. I was even (gulp) bored for several chapters. The treacherous ocean had become a gentle millpond and I wanted more.
Ah, but then wonderful Jess Kidd redeems herself with a poignant scene at the book's dénouement; a passage so pitiful, so heroic, that the scales on the back of my neck stood on end and my gills began to gasp. "Bravo, Jess!" I squeaked, clapping my fins together.
Best supporting character awards go to two protags; one living, one dead: Cora Butter, Bridie's seven-foot-tall housemaid, who is fiercely loyal and commendably noble; and to Ruby Doyle, a top-hatted prizefighter whose sliding tattoos have a mind of their own.
As ever, Jess Kidd's lyrical prose is a joy to behold and she employs an opulence of literary devices to good effect: personification; aphorisms; allusion and zoomorphism, to name but a few.
All things considered, this dark, exuberant, whimsical extravaganza was very much to my taste and the indomitable Bridie Devine will linger long in your mind.
Four stars, bumped up to five, because Jess Kidd has ninja writing skillz.
—Hans Christian Andersen, The Little Mermaid
I'm a huge fan of Jess Kidd's exquisite, playful writing and KERPOW, what a start! Her vivid prologue was one of the finest things I've read in a long time. Gadzooks! I shouted. That alone was worth the entrance fee.
The book is set in a Victorian London that Dickens might have portrayed: one that is theatrically grotesque and wonderfully atmospheric, whose slums are as lively as a blanket full of lice. Our heroine is special detective Bridie Devine, a dynamic pipe-smoking woman of around thirty years of age. She wears the ugliest bonnet in Christendom and can drink most men under a table.
Ms Devine - womankind's answer to Sherlock Holmes - has a psychic talent for reading corpses that have met with inexplicable deaths. The author describes her as being a 'woman made from boot polish and pipe smoke' (Kidd's female characters are often gloriously independent, which I love).
Devine's latest case concerns the kidnapping of a Baronet's daughter, Christabel Berwick, a pike-toothed child who smells of the sea and is kept shackled and hidden in a locked nursery.
The magical realism herein is precisely as it should be – dark, imaginative, irreverent and wryly amusing. To explain this thriller/mystery any further would be to divulge its silty, slippery secrets.
It frustrates me that certain putty-fingered authors find themselves on Booker shortlists when über talented Jess Kidd can write their socks off. With that said, I'm not altogether sure why she felt the need to hyphenate words that shouldn’t be hyphenated: church-yard; crest-fallen; dumb-founded; gas-lights… Perhaps she was going for a Victorian style of writing?
Disappointingly, the story began to lose its cut and thrust in the middle stages. I was even (gulp) bored for several chapters. The treacherous ocean had become a gentle millpond and I wanted more.
Ah, but then wonderful Jess Kidd redeems herself with a poignant scene at the book's dénouement; a passage so pitiful, so heroic, that the scales on the back of my neck stood on end and my gills began to gasp. "Bravo, Jess!" I squeaked, clapping my fins together.
Best supporting character awards go to two protags; one living, one dead: Cora Butter, Bridie's seven-foot-tall housemaid, who is fiercely loyal and commendably noble; and to Ruby Doyle, a top-hatted prizefighter whose sliding tattoos have a mind of their own.
As ever, Jess Kidd's lyrical prose is a joy to behold and she employs an opulence of literary devices to good effect: personification; aphorisms; allusion and zoomorphism, to name but a few.
All things considered, this dark, exuberant, whimsical extravaganza was very much to my taste and the indomitable Bridie Devine will linger long in your mind.
Four stars, bumped up to five, because Jess Kidd has ninja writing skillz.
March 2, 2020
Things In Jars starts off with Bridie, a private detective, being presented with a most baffling case. Sir Berwick's daughter has been kidnapped and he wants her found, but he won't share any relevant information with Bridie, including why he keeps her hidden away. So what's Sir Berwick hiding? The more Bridie learns, the more unusual this puzzle becomes. She prowls around dirty Victorian London trying to piece this together, accompanied by a motley crew, including a faithful ghost companion, a tall giantess housemaid, and a friendly police inspector.
This story is definitely... unusual. I found the mystery itself to be the most compelling part of it. When I'm in those parts of the book, I'm totally riveted, gobbling through it, wondering what's going and what I'll learn next. The fantasy element existing within the real world made this a most surprising and interesting mix. Bridie's friends are also a sweet and funny bunch, offering her physical and emotional support in ways that only loyal friends do.
But I almost gave up on this story multiple times, especially at the beginning. I found the writing style to be extremely difficult to understand, to the point where I had no idea what was going on in the first 50 pages. The excessive descriptions just don't do it for me. Every time a person is introduced, we read extensively about every feature on their face, every article of clothing, their posture and body shape, all using florid metaphors that don't make any sense to me. Each time this happens, I would lose my train of thought halfway through or forget the point the author is trying to make. Then I'd have to go back and reread it multiple times before I can even make heads or tails of it.
It's so frustrating when a good story is mired in this overwrought style of writing. I also found the sentences to be weird in construction and the vocabulary obscure. So I was often looking up multiple words in every sentence. Once I got about 100 pages in and the plot started taking shape, I went back and reread the first 50 pages, at last understanding what was happening. But a good story shouldn't be that way. The writing should keep the reader engaged in the story, not take them out of it in confusion every few sentences or attempt to impress them with verbal gymnastics.
This is also an extremely gory book, with plenty of bodily fluids, internal organs, pus, festering, blood, poo... you name it, it's in this book. While it didn't bother me for the most part, I do like to indulge in reading while eating, and this is definitely not good for that.
In the end, this was both an interesting but also extremely frustrating reading experience for me. I don't want to discount or sell this story short. No doubt, without the verbal gymnastics and the florid descriptions, this would have been easily a 4-star read for me. But as it stands, it's a story I like, but with lots of reservations. I can't give this more than 3 stars, especially as I'm not sure I understood half of it even though I read most of it multiple times.
This story is definitely... unusual. I found the mystery itself to be the most compelling part of it. When I'm in those parts of the book, I'm totally riveted, gobbling through it, wondering what's going and what I'll learn next. The fantasy element existing within the real world made this a most surprising and interesting mix. Bridie's friends are also a sweet and funny bunch, offering her physical and emotional support in ways that only loyal friends do.
But I almost gave up on this story multiple times, especially at the beginning. I found the writing style to be extremely difficult to understand, to the point where I had no idea what was going on in the first 50 pages. The excessive descriptions just don't do it for me. Every time a person is introduced, we read extensively about every feature on their face, every article of clothing, their posture and body shape, all using florid metaphors that don't make any sense to me. Each time this happens, I would lose my train of thought halfway through or forget the point the author is trying to make. Then I'd have to go back and reread it multiple times before I can even make heads or tails of it.
It's so frustrating when a good story is mired in this overwrought style of writing. I also found the sentences to be weird in construction and the vocabulary obscure. So I was often looking up multiple words in every sentence. Once I got about 100 pages in and the plot started taking shape, I went back and reread the first 50 pages, at last understanding what was happening. But a good story shouldn't be that way. The writing should keep the reader engaged in the story, not take them out of it in confusion every few sentences or attempt to impress them with verbal gymnastics.
This is also an extremely gory book, with plenty of bodily fluids, internal organs, pus, festering, blood, poo... you name it, it's in this book. While it didn't bother me for the most part, I do like to indulge in reading while eating, and this is definitely not good for that.
In the end, this was both an interesting but also extremely frustrating reading experience for me. I don't want to discount or sell this story short. No doubt, without the verbal gymnastics and the florid descriptions, this would have been easily a 4-star read for me. But as it stands, it's a story I like, but with lots of reservations. I can't give this more than 3 stars, especially as I'm not sure I understood half of it even though I read most of it multiple times.
November 21, 2019
4.5 STARS
A dark, bizarre and fanciful world
Imaginative storytelling that was menacing, detailed and plotted to perfection.
I was quickly captivated by the gothic setting and the missing child investigation. The female detective, Birdie Devine specializes in domestic investigations and minor surgery. She was a fantastic character that brought humor and humanity to the tale.
The supernatural elements and fairytale esque cast of characters kept me glued to the pages and immersed in their quest for the "Winter Mermaid". The images of snails, scales and those "things in jars" were mesmerizing. I also learned about merrows, which both fascinated and terrified me!
A splash of magical realism, some wicked happenings and plenty of side characters to love/hate made this one quite a fantastical journey!
Thanks to NG and the pub for my review copy. OUT Feb 2020
A dark, bizarre and fanciful world
Imaginative storytelling that was menacing, detailed and plotted to perfection.
I was quickly captivated by the gothic setting and the missing child investigation. The female detective, Birdie Devine specializes in domestic investigations and minor surgery. She was a fantastic character that brought humor and humanity to the tale.
The supernatural elements and fairytale esque cast of characters kept me glued to the pages and immersed in their quest for the "Winter Mermaid". The images of snails, scales and those "things in jars" were mesmerizing. I also learned about merrows, which both fascinated and terrified me!
A splash of magical realism, some wicked happenings and plenty of side characters to love/hate made this one quite a fantastical journey!
Thanks to NG and the pub for my review copy. OUT Feb 2020
January 26, 2020
2.5/2.75 rounded up
Bridie Devine is a female detective in Victorian London. One day she is approached to investigate the case of a missing girl, Christabel - the secret child of Sir Edmund Athelstan Berwick. She is reported to have supernatural powers. Bridie is hot on the case; she lost her last missing child and is determined to save this one. Her search for the girls is aided by her seven-foot-tall housemaid, and a tattoo covered ghost.
Sounds interesting, right? Well, it was...but there is a big BUT coming...it didn't work that well for me. Add me to the outlier group. I found this to be okay at best. I am usually able to suspend disbelief and enjoy books with ghosts, supernatural elements and such. This book was an odd one and hard for me to rate. I never wanted to stop reading it and in fact, I was compelled to keep reading to find out what was going to happen, and mainly, to find out if Bridie would learn how (if) she knew Ruby.
So how does one rate a book which is oddly compelling, atmospheric, weird, with interestingly strange characters with a story line which fails to wow you. I'm going with three stars. This book is imaginative, poetic at times, compelling and I'm going with strange again. I did enjoy Bridie’s character and enjoyed her interactions with Ruby. I enjoyed Cora as well. But the story itself, failed to wow me. Can’t quite put my finger out it, except to say that we all can’t love the same books and some books work for us while others do not. This is right there in the middle for me.
Others are enjoying this more than I did, and I encourage you to seek out their reviews as well.
Thank you to Atria books and NetGalley who provided me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All the thoughts and opinions are my own.
**This was a Traveling Friends/Sisters Buddy Read
Bridie Devine is a female detective in Victorian London. One day she is approached to investigate the case of a missing girl, Christabel - the secret child of Sir Edmund Athelstan Berwick. She is reported to have supernatural powers. Bridie is hot on the case; she lost her last missing child and is determined to save this one. Her search for the girls is aided by her seven-foot-tall housemaid, and a tattoo covered ghost.
Sounds interesting, right? Well, it was...but there is a big BUT coming...it didn't work that well for me. Add me to the outlier group. I found this to be okay at best. I am usually able to suspend disbelief and enjoy books with ghosts, supernatural elements and such. This book was an odd one and hard for me to rate. I never wanted to stop reading it and in fact, I was compelled to keep reading to find out what was going to happen, and mainly, to find out if Bridie would learn how (if) she knew Ruby.
So how does one rate a book which is oddly compelling, atmospheric, weird, with interestingly strange characters with a story line which fails to wow you. I'm going with three stars. This book is imaginative, poetic at times, compelling and I'm going with strange again. I did enjoy Bridie’s character and enjoyed her interactions with Ruby. I enjoyed Cora as well. But the story itself, failed to wow me. Can’t quite put my finger out it, except to say that we all can’t love the same books and some books work for us while others do not. This is right there in the middle for me.
Others are enjoying this more than I did, and I encourage you to seek out their reviews as well.
Thank you to Atria books and NetGalley who provided me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All the thoughts and opinions are my own.
**This was a Traveling Friends/Sisters Buddy Read
January 10, 2020
My first five star read of 2020
From the first sentence, you know this book is going to be different. “As pale as a grave grub, she’s an eyeful.” The writing is just gorgeous, in that Victorian, Dickensian fashion. Think Dickens matched with Grimms Fairy Tales. Or Dickens if he was smoking hashish ( or one of Prudhoe’s blends) and into Irish folktales.
I loved the characters: Bridie, part sleuth, part doctor (untrained), Cora, her seven foot maid with a beautiful baritone voice and Ruby, a dead boxer with living tattoos. London is a character in its own right. Yes, there is a supernatural element here, of which I usually am not a fan. But Kidd has managed to create a world so believable, that I swallowed it hook, line and sinker.
There’s a sly sense of humor here, mostly in the descriptions. While the theme of the book is dark, it’s just so darn entertaining. The story has Bridie being hired to find the kidnapped daughter of a baronet. But not just any daughter, this daughter has special characteristics. We are led into a world filled with grave robbers, anatomists, collectors of all things odd and unique.
Kudos to Kidd for getting it all right. I haven’t read her prior books, but I’m now inspired to seek them out.
A huge thanks to netgalley and Atria books for an advance copy of this book.
From the first sentence, you know this book is going to be different. “As pale as a grave grub, she’s an eyeful.” The writing is just gorgeous, in that Victorian, Dickensian fashion. Think Dickens matched with Grimms Fairy Tales. Or Dickens if he was smoking hashish ( or one of Prudhoe’s blends) and into Irish folktales.
I loved the characters: Bridie, part sleuth, part doctor (untrained), Cora, her seven foot maid with a beautiful baritone voice and Ruby, a dead boxer with living tattoos. London is a character in its own right. Yes, there is a supernatural element here, of which I usually am not a fan. But Kidd has managed to create a world so believable, that I swallowed it hook, line and sinker.
There’s a sly sense of humor here, mostly in the descriptions. While the theme of the book is dark, it’s just so darn entertaining. The story has Bridie being hired to find the kidnapped daughter of a baronet. But not just any daughter, this daughter has special characteristics. We are led into a world filled with grave robbers, anatomists, collectors of all things odd and unique.
Kudos to Kidd for getting it all right. I haven’t read her prior books, but I’m now inspired to seek them out.
A huge thanks to netgalley and Atria books for an advance copy of this book.
April 10, 2020
3.75 stars
“London is like a difficult surgical patient; however cautious the incision, anything and everything is liable to burst out.”
The above sums up exactly my experience with this rather eccentric novel, my first by Jess Kidd! Nearly anything and everything macabre, bizarre, paranormal, mythical, and supernatural that you could possibly imagine turn up on the streets of Kidd’s Victorian London. I was both mesmerized as well as a bit out of my element. If you want to be wholly removed from your own realm for a bit, you might want to consider this one.
“Bridie Devine is not the flinching kind... Bridie has a talent for the reading of corpses: the tale of life and death written on every body.”
By far what compelled me the most to keep turning the pages of this book was Bridie Devine. What a wonderfully fashioned character! A Dublin orphan who has served as apprentice to a resurrection man, an anatomist, and an experimental toxicologist, Bridie now works independently as a sleuth that could hold her own next to the likes of the renowned Sherlock Holmes. And her seven-foot, bewhiskered housemaid and sidekick Cora Butter could swiftly bring Dr. Watson to his knees! I trembled to envision my fate if I were to get on the wrong side of Ms. Butter. When Bridie is called on to find a baronet’s missing child, she’ll be forced to recollect her past as well. This is not just any missing child, this is a most unfortunate, extraordinary little girl who has captured the attention of a myriad of some very sordid individuals. Be warned though. Underneath those ribbons and curls is something extremely unnerving.
This book really does have it all. It’s clearly brilliantly researched and vividly created. Modern day London is transformed to one that even Charles Dickens would applaud if Jess Kidd could resurrect even his celebrated personage – which indeed I believe she could! Sinister villains, kick-ass heroines, and even a ghost with moving tattoos who provides a bit of a nod to the romantic in Kidd’s vision are all on display here. I was thoroughly entertained. Now for the however… at times I was overwhelmed by the extravagance of it all. I adore and lap up description, but this particular book was so heavily laden with it that I frequently lost sight of the plot running beneath all the sensation. I was taken out of the story one too many times. That said, I have no doubt about the writing finesse of Jess Kidd. I will loop back to her first two novels for sure. Fans of historical fiction, all things Gothic, and magical realism will delight in Things in Jars.
“Here is time held in suspension. Yesterday pickled. Eternity in a jar.”
“London is like a difficult surgical patient; however cautious the incision, anything and everything is liable to burst out.”
The above sums up exactly my experience with this rather eccentric novel, my first by Jess Kidd! Nearly anything and everything macabre, bizarre, paranormal, mythical, and supernatural that you could possibly imagine turn up on the streets of Kidd’s Victorian London. I was both mesmerized as well as a bit out of my element. If you want to be wholly removed from your own realm for a bit, you might want to consider this one.
“Bridie Devine is not the flinching kind... Bridie has a talent for the reading of corpses: the tale of life and death written on every body.”
By far what compelled me the most to keep turning the pages of this book was Bridie Devine. What a wonderfully fashioned character! A Dublin orphan who has served as apprentice to a resurrection man, an anatomist, and an experimental toxicologist, Bridie now works independently as a sleuth that could hold her own next to the likes of the renowned Sherlock Holmes. And her seven-foot, bewhiskered housemaid and sidekick Cora Butter could swiftly bring Dr. Watson to his knees! I trembled to envision my fate if I were to get on the wrong side of Ms. Butter. When Bridie is called on to find a baronet’s missing child, she’ll be forced to recollect her past as well. This is not just any missing child, this is a most unfortunate, extraordinary little girl who has captured the attention of a myriad of some very sordid individuals. Be warned though. Underneath those ribbons and curls is something extremely unnerving.
This book really does have it all. It’s clearly brilliantly researched and vividly created. Modern day London is transformed to one that even Charles Dickens would applaud if Jess Kidd could resurrect even his celebrated personage – which indeed I believe she could! Sinister villains, kick-ass heroines, and even a ghost with moving tattoos who provides a bit of a nod to the romantic in Kidd’s vision are all on display here. I was thoroughly entertained. Now for the however… at times I was overwhelmed by the extravagance of it all. I adore and lap up description, but this particular book was so heavily laden with it that I frequently lost sight of the plot running beneath all the sensation. I was taken out of the story one too many times. That said, I have no doubt about the writing finesse of Jess Kidd. I will loop back to her first two novels for sure. Fans of historical fiction, all things Gothic, and magical realism will delight in Things in Jars.
“Here is time held in suspension. Yesterday pickled. Eternity in a jar.”
January 19, 2020
BOTM pick January 2020!
Absolutely breathtaking. I must read more from Jess Kidd ASAP! While the mystery of the disappeared girl is front and foremost in this tale, I felt that the idea of our fascination with creatures and humans different from the norm, and our desire to contain them, was a huge theme explored as well. This was a timely, thought-provoking read, and although it took me a bit to get through this one, it was well worth the time taken to read it.
*Many thanks to the publisher for providing my review copy via NetGalley.
Absolutely breathtaking. I must read more from Jess Kidd ASAP! While the mystery of the disappeared girl is front and foremost in this tale, I felt that the idea of our fascination with creatures and humans different from the norm, and our desire to contain them, was a huge theme explored as well. This was a timely, thought-provoking read, and although it took me a bit to get through this one, it was well worth the time taken to read it.
*Many thanks to the publisher for providing my review copy via NetGalley.
December 26, 2019
Meeting Birdie Devine, a female investigator, who in 1863 receives an offer from a baronet to find hs kidnapped daughter, was a pleasure. More than that, I was delighted to get acquainted with her and follow her efforts to uncover the truth behind the abduction. She is observant, intelligent, has no fear of the dead or alive, with one exception, perhaps, and she has been through a lot in life. And she is accompanied by a former boxer who, though dead, gives some advice, occasionally.
I loved everything about this mixture of HF, fantasy and gothic elements. The narration is exquisite, and the things we learn about Birdie's past definitely add to the atmosphere in the novel. All characters are vividly described, each with the characteristics that make them peculiar and particular. There is no character which is unnecessary, and the way Ms Kidd conncects them is brilliant. Birdie is a survivor, created by what she experienced and by whom she met in the past. I love Birdie!
When I saw the title of this book months ago, I immediately thought of the macabre the Victorians were so interested in, and it turned out, I was right. This novel has Victorian touch of the highest quality, and I truly recommend it to anyone eager to dive into a terrific read.
*Many thanks to Jess Kidd, Atria Books and NetGalley for arc in exchange for my honest review.*
I loved everything about this mixture of HF, fantasy and gothic elements. The narration is exquisite, and the things we learn about Birdie's past definitely add to the atmosphere in the novel. All characters are vividly described, each with the characteristics that make them peculiar and particular. There is no character which is unnecessary, and the way Ms Kidd conncects them is brilliant. Birdie is a survivor, created by what she experienced and by whom she met in the past. I love Birdie!
When I saw the title of this book months ago, I immediately thought of the macabre the Victorians were so interested in, and it turned out, I was right. This novel has Victorian touch of the highest quality, and I truly recommend it to anyone eager to dive into a terrific read.
*Many thanks to Jess Kidd, Atria Books and NetGalley for arc in exchange for my honest review.*
April 27, 2022
Jess Kidd is now officially one of my most favourite authors. Three beautiful books in a row with not a fault in any of them. What more to ask for.
Things in Jars moves us away from the author's usual locations in Ireland and off to London. Of course our main characters are still beautifully Irish and, also of course, one of them is a ghost. Kidd describes Victorian London perfectly with all its horrors and its smells and its poverty among the lower classes.
Her characters too are all larger than life. Bridie Devine, the finest female detective of the time, takes on a case of a stolen child who turns out to be a very unusual child indeed. Helping her in the search is Ruby Doyle, champion boxer, now deceased but not yet resting in peace, and Cora Butter "the only, and most terrifying, seven-foot-tall housemaid in London."
The story goes into some very dark places, but it is also humourous, totally entertaining and very well written. A really excellent and very readable book. I loved it.
Things in Jars moves us away from the author's usual locations in Ireland and off to London. Of course our main characters are still beautifully Irish and, also of course, one of them is a ghost. Kidd describes Victorian London perfectly with all its horrors and its smells and its poverty among the lower classes.
Her characters too are all larger than life. Bridie Devine, the finest female detective of the time, takes on a case of a stolen child who turns out to be a very unusual child indeed. Helping her in the search is Ruby Doyle, champion boxer, now deceased but not yet resting in peace, and Cora Butter "the only, and most terrifying, seven-foot-tall housemaid in London."
The story goes into some very dark places, but it is also humourous, totally entertaining and very well written. A really excellent and very readable book. I loved it.
February 13, 2020
"As pale as a grave grub, she's an eyeful."
"She's pretty.
"She's more than pretty. She's a churchyard angel, a marble carving, with her ivory curls and pale, pale stony eyes. But not stone -- brightening pearl, oh soft hued!"
On this beautifully delicate, intriguing note Jess Kidd sings us into this fascinating novel in which most people and things are anything but pale or angelic. This is Victorian London, 1863, post Burke & Hare. 'Burking" is now a verb, corpses and body parts and nature's mistakes are much in demand.
Kidd portrays the filth and stink of the people and parts of the city, and the river, as well as I've ever encountered in a Victorian-era novel. We get a raven's view. We walk the streets of London early on with the protagonist and "Breathe in -- but not too deeply," Kidd writes. "Follow the fulsome fumes from the tanners and the reek from the brewery, butterscotch rotten." Her prose is so quotable, so beautiful no matter what she's describing, even when it's human waste and the reek of the river.
1863 was a time when oddities, the titular things in jars and circuses and elsewhere, were eagerly sought by certain collectors. In 1863 the Elephant Man was just a year old and there's no Saucy Jack yet to upstage Kidd's story. She's cleverly set it before Holmes & Watson (whom I adore). She's got her own team and they're like no characters you've ever encountered.
Bridget "Bridie" Devine is the sleuth and the star here. There are intervals in her past and I won't say much about it except she's a terrific heroine who has walked a rocky road from orphan to mentor of a man dedicated to scientific study, especially of things in jars. Bridie's beauty is in the red of her hair and the knife in her skirts and most beautiful of all is her brain, which fortunately for the reader is lodged in her head not a jar. She's scientific, clever, canny and compulsively interesting, which is great because this book has the signs of a series.
Bridie's main sidekick is her maid Cora Butter, seven-feet tall and bearded, who Bridie bought out of a bear cage in a circus. Cora's smart, devoted and full of surprises. There's also Ruby Doyle, dead boxer, who spies Bridie in Highgate Cemetery where she goes early on to investigate something strange at the request of Inspector Valentine Rose (the name!), who trusts Bridie for certain discreet sleuthing and oh yes, is in love with her. Only Bridie can see Ruby Doyle and he's so smitten he leaves his grave and Highgate to stick by her side. Valentine Rose, whose wooing skills seem limited, has no idea of his rival. There's cruelty and squalor and crime and humor and magical realism. Ruby Doyle's tattoos move when he's moved.
The story? A cast of low lives trying to make money off Christobel, who may or may not be a merrow, a kind of mermaid of Irish mythology with the teeth of a pike and -- well, they're nothing like Disney's Ariel. There may be a wee one chained up in a mausoleum in Highgate, a part of one that's a very valuable thing in a jar and...a real one? With skin like marble, as pale as a grave grub -- is she? Why do snails suddenly appear every time she is near?
The villains are delightfully villainous, Bridie is a breath of fresh air amid the miasma of Victorian London, Cora Butter and Ruby the ghost are terrific companions and I love how Kidd has named the only professional detective Valentine Rose. There's mystery and suspense aplenty but it's not a page turner, it's a twist-and-turner and a sit-back-and-enjoy ride. In that sense it reminds me of Diane Setterfield's "Once Upon a River," another mystery so well told that finding out who did what to whom and how it all came together was wonderful, but no less wonderful than the journey. And to "Things in Jars" add serpentine twists of plot and character most of which you can't see coming.
From the sewage of London to the walled estate of a baronet to a circus freak-show with its greedy proprietor who likens himself to Henry VIII but is closer to a Falstaff, this book is a tour de force. Kidd unspools the story slowly and it's a ball of a yarn. So many books so little time but I could read this one over and over. It seems we'll see Bridie and Cora and...? again. But no matter the direction in which Kidd's muse beckons her, wherever she goes, punch my ticket: I'm ready right now.
"She's pretty.
"She's more than pretty. She's a churchyard angel, a marble carving, with her ivory curls and pale, pale stony eyes. But not stone -- brightening pearl, oh soft hued!"
On this beautifully delicate, intriguing note Jess Kidd sings us into this fascinating novel in which most people and things are anything but pale or angelic. This is Victorian London, 1863, post Burke & Hare. 'Burking" is now a verb, corpses and body parts and nature's mistakes are much in demand.
Kidd portrays the filth and stink of the people and parts of the city, and the river, as well as I've ever encountered in a Victorian-era novel. We get a raven's view. We walk the streets of London early on with the protagonist and "Breathe in -- but not too deeply," Kidd writes. "Follow the fulsome fumes from the tanners and the reek from the brewery, butterscotch rotten." Her prose is so quotable, so beautiful no matter what she's describing, even when it's human waste and the reek of the river.
1863 was a time when oddities, the titular things in jars and circuses and elsewhere, were eagerly sought by certain collectors. In 1863 the Elephant Man was just a year old and there's no Saucy Jack yet to upstage Kidd's story. She's cleverly set it before Holmes & Watson (whom I adore). She's got her own team and they're like no characters you've ever encountered.
Bridget "Bridie" Devine is the sleuth and the star here. There are intervals in her past and I won't say much about it except she's a terrific heroine who has walked a rocky road from orphan to mentor of a man dedicated to scientific study, especially of things in jars. Bridie's beauty is in the red of her hair and the knife in her skirts and most beautiful of all is her brain, which fortunately for the reader is lodged in her head not a jar. She's scientific, clever, canny and compulsively interesting, which is great because this book has the signs of a series.
Bridie's main sidekick is her maid Cora Butter, seven-feet tall and bearded, who Bridie bought out of a bear cage in a circus. Cora's smart, devoted and full of surprises. There's also Ruby Doyle, dead boxer, who spies Bridie in Highgate Cemetery where she goes early on to investigate something strange at the request of Inspector Valentine Rose (the name!), who trusts Bridie for certain discreet sleuthing and oh yes, is in love with her. Only Bridie can see Ruby Doyle and he's so smitten he leaves his grave and Highgate to stick by her side. Valentine Rose, whose wooing skills seem limited, has no idea of his rival. There's cruelty and squalor and crime and humor and magical realism. Ruby Doyle's tattoos move when he's moved.
The story? A cast of low lives trying to make money off Christobel, who may or may not be a merrow, a kind of mermaid of Irish mythology with the teeth of a pike and -- well, they're nothing like Disney's Ariel. There may be a wee one chained up in a mausoleum in Highgate, a part of one that's a very valuable thing in a jar and...a real one? With skin like marble, as pale as a grave grub -- is she? Why do snails suddenly appear every time she is near?
The villains are delightfully villainous, Bridie is a breath of fresh air amid the miasma of Victorian London, Cora Butter and Ruby the ghost are terrific companions and I love how Kidd has named the only professional detective Valentine Rose. There's mystery and suspense aplenty but it's not a page turner, it's a twist-and-turner and a sit-back-and-enjoy ride. In that sense it reminds me of Diane Setterfield's "Once Upon a River," another mystery so well told that finding out who did what to whom and how it all came together was wonderful, but no less wonderful than the journey. And to "Things in Jars" add serpentine twists of plot and character most of which you can't see coming.
From the sewage of London to the walled estate of a baronet to a circus freak-show with its greedy proprietor who likens himself to Henry VIII but is closer to a Falstaff, this book is a tour de force. Kidd unspools the story slowly and it's a ball of a yarn. So many books so little time but I could read this one over and over. It seems we'll see Bridie and Cora and...? again. But no matter the direction in which Kidd's muse beckons her, wherever she goes, punch my ticket: I'm ready right now.
March 24, 2025
This book was quite the different and interesting read. I was definitely intrigued with what I was reading but it was a little too much work to stay fully focused in though. I felt that it was a little too wordy at times and I wasn't invested enough in the characters for it to be an enjoyable read. I thought this was just an okay read.
Please take this review with a grain of salt as it looks like I am definitely the outlier here. So many others have really enjoyed this. Maybe it is this time period that I don't do well with???
Thanks so much to NetGalley, Atria Books, and Jess Kidd for the opportunity to read an advanced copy of this book.
Please take this review with a grain of salt as it looks like I am definitely the outlier here. So many others have really enjoyed this. Maybe it is this time period that I don't do well with???
Thanks so much to NetGalley, Atria Books, and Jess Kidd for the opportunity to read an advanced copy of this book.
February 4, 2020
What a strange book. Way too much description of excrement and the stench of human body parts...heck, way, way too much description all together. I did like the relationships between Bridie, Doyle, and Cora and I would have liked more of that with less of all the unneeded/unwanted verbiage over-describing the stinking city and ugly people. Too much violence happening to animals and people, it's just a sordid story overall. It was well written but overdone.
Having said all of that, I encourage readers to check out other reviews because so many people loved this story. I did love the story of Bridie and Doyle and wanted so much more about them and their time together. I pretty much adored those two. I want to thank Atria Books and NetGalley for this ARC.
Having said all of that, I encourage readers to check out other reviews because so many people loved this story. I did love the story of Bridie and Doyle and wanted so much more about them and their time together. I pretty much adored those two. I want to thank Atria Books and NetGalley for this ARC.
January 1, 2020
4.5
A Victorian detective novel set in London, 1863..
This cast of characters is something else! Bridie, a red haired Irish woman..pipe smoking, a small and tough broad and her sidekick, a ghost named Ruby Doyle (especially loved these two)
Bridie is on a case to solve the kidnapping of six year old Cristabel Berwick, an “oddity of nature” who has pike like teeth, who smells of the sea and draws people’s memories out of them.
Jess Kidd is an amazing writer!
This is her third book and I’ve enjoyed them all!
Here is a link where she talks about this book.
https://youtu.be/h6XLYHGDlyw
Thank you so much to Atria through Netgalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review!
A Victorian detective novel set in London, 1863..
This cast of characters is something else! Bridie, a red haired Irish woman..pipe smoking, a small and tough broad and her sidekick, a ghost named Ruby Doyle (especially loved these two)
Bridie is on a case to solve the kidnapping of six year old Cristabel Berwick, an “oddity of nature” who has pike like teeth, who smells of the sea and draws people’s memories out of them.
Jess Kidd is an amazing writer!
This is her third book and I’ve enjoyed them all!
Here is a link where she talks about this book.
https://youtu.be/h6XLYHGDlyw
Thank you so much to Atria through Netgalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review!
February 28, 2020
Indeed, a great and greatly entertaining book featuring colourful characters in Victorian London female detective Bridie, her giant housekeeper and sidekick, a ghost boxer and a wondrous child who attracts the weirdest marine life. A mystery, a fantasy, a crime novel, all in one. Quirky, funny and interesting. More to follow, 4.2! Interesting author, will definitely check out her other books.
November 26, 2019
Recipe: Throw in a very unusual detective named Bridie, her housekeeper Cora whom Bridie helped rescue from a freak show, and a ghost, an ex boxer who has a tattooed body, with tattoos that move, wearing only a top hat and baggy underdrawers. Add a missing child from a notable personage, the folk story of the merrow, one or two evil men, a unusual but helpful apothecary and freak shows and oddities galore. What one now has is a truly imaginative, inventive and entertaining look at a time when strange ruled the day.
Don't know how Kidd comes up with the story ideas she has, but I've enjoyed all three of her very different books. This is a dark London, a hidden London where many things go unnoticed and unreported. Bridie has her hands full and a very interesting back story. The ghost insists she knows him from the past, but she doesn't remember,though by books end that will change. The mood, the atmosphere, the gothic storytelling aided in my quest to know how's the author would bring this all together. She does, in a thriller sty!e with an emotional edge.
One can't help wondering where this author will take us next, or if this might be the start of a series featuring Bridie. Time will tell.
Don't know how Kidd comes up with the story ideas she has, but I've enjoyed all three of her very different books. This is a dark London, a hidden London where many things go unnoticed and unreported. Bridie has her hands full and a very interesting back story. The ghost insists she knows him from the past, but she doesn't remember,though by books end that will change. The mood, the atmosphere, the gothic storytelling aided in my quest to know how's the author would bring this all together. She does, in a thriller sty!e with an emotional edge.
One can't help wondering where this author will take us next, or if this might be the start of a series featuring Bridie. Time will tell.
September 3, 2021
It turns out that funny banter-filled romantic spooky mythical creature-populated fantastical historical fiction has been something that we've been allowed to have this whole time??
So now I'm furious that this is the first time I, personally, have experienced this.
I have grown to realize that I don't even LIKE historical fiction, contrary to decades (okay, like one decade) of belief, which is why I put off reading this book for, uh, two years.
And then I got around to it and it somehow charmed even ME?
Yes, I had a hard time getting into it, and yes, there were times I had a hard time staying in it, but overall any book with mermaid gremlins and creepy children and romances beginning in graveyards where one party is a ghost...
All of those are for me.
Bottom line: One of a kind! Sadly.
---------------
pre-review
my 200th read of the year!
review to come / 3.5 stars
---------------
tbr review
ladies and gentlemen, we have a genre-bender
---------------
challenging myself to read as many review copies as possible this month because i'm addicted to projects!
ARC 1: spaceman of bohemia
ARC 2: in search of us
ARC 3: aerialists
ARC 4: the sound of drowning
ARC 5: unleaving
ARC 6: the other side of luck
ARC 7: romanov
ARC 8: the storm keeper's island
ARC 9: gut check
ARC 10: when force meets fate
ARC 11: sisters in hate
ARC 12: before i disappear
ARC 13: big time
ARC 14: stolen science
ARC 15: have a little faith in me
ARC 16: invitation to a bonfire
ARC 17: the splendor
ARC 18: how to be luminous
ARC 19: the little women cookbook
ARC 20: while we were dating
ARC 21: the lost girls
ARC 22: wait for it
ARC 23: your life has been delayed
ARC 24: a million things
ARC 25: the royals next door
ARC 26: the love hypothesis
ARC 27: we light up the sky
ARC 28: the printed letter bookshop
ARC 29: on location
ARC 30: how rory thorne destroyed the multiverse
ARC 31: the map from here to there
ARC 32: the last chance library
ARC 33: on the way to birdland
ARC 34: things in jars
So now I'm furious that this is the first time I, personally, have experienced this.
I have grown to realize that I don't even LIKE historical fiction, contrary to decades (okay, like one decade) of belief, which is why I put off reading this book for, uh, two years.
And then I got around to it and it somehow charmed even ME?
Yes, I had a hard time getting into it, and yes, there were times I had a hard time staying in it, but overall any book with mermaid gremlins and creepy children and romances beginning in graveyards where one party is a ghost...
All of those are for me.
Bottom line: One of a kind! Sadly.
---------------
pre-review
my 200th read of the year!
review to come / 3.5 stars
---------------
tbr review
ladies and gentlemen, we have a genre-bender
---------------
challenging myself to read as many review copies as possible this month because i'm addicted to projects!
ARC 1: spaceman of bohemia
ARC 2: in search of us
ARC 3: aerialists
ARC 4: the sound of drowning
ARC 5: unleaving
ARC 6: the other side of luck
ARC 7: romanov
ARC 8: the storm keeper's island
ARC 9: gut check
ARC 10: when force meets fate
ARC 11: sisters in hate
ARC 12: before i disappear
ARC 13: big time
ARC 14: stolen science
ARC 15: have a little faith in me
ARC 16: invitation to a bonfire
ARC 17: the splendor
ARC 18: how to be luminous
ARC 19: the little women cookbook
ARC 20: while we were dating
ARC 21: the lost girls
ARC 22: wait for it
ARC 23: your life has been delayed
ARC 24: a million things
ARC 25: the royals next door
ARC 26: the love hypothesis
ARC 27: we light up the sky
ARC 28: the printed letter bookshop
ARC 29: on location
ARC 30: how rory thorne destroyed the multiverse
ARC 31: the map from here to there
ARC 32: the last chance library
ARC 33: on the way to birdland
ARC 34: things in jars
February 6, 2020
2.5 Stars rounded up to 3
I was lured into reading this book by the setting of Victorian London, the promise of gothic suspense, and a grand, almost poetic writing style. The final selling point was my Goodreads friend Paromjit's magnificent 5 Star review. The writing style was grandiose, indeed. While often beautiful, atmospheric and descriptive, it sometimes left me feeling like it was too much work reading it. In addition, I had trouble keeping track of all the characters, nor did I much care about them except for one: a handsome, deceased Irish boxer named Ruby. He had an extraordinary collection of tattoos over his body that would undulate as if they were alive. He faithfully followed around the main character "Bridie" who came to find his company both appealing and comforting.
The story involves physicians who at that time were always looking for bodies to experiment on to learn new surgical procedures. There is also an obsession with a kind of female human/mermaid hybrid creature who has pike teeth and can be extremely dangerous. These oddities can be "things in jars" or performers in a travelling circus.
Bridget or "Bridie" (as we come to know the main character) was rescued from poverty in Ireland by a physician. He welcomed her into his home where she was cleaned up and made to wear the rich clothing left behind by his late daughter. She had a propensity for medicine and the doctor encouraged her to accompany him on his medical travels. At that time women were not allowed to be physicians and Bridie was not above wearing disguises in order to witness a surgery with other gentlemen. She is now widowed and living off an annuity along with her 7 foot tall household helper Cora. Bridie has a reputation for helping out police detectives on cases and is recruited to find a missing daughter.
I keep asking myself why I didn't DNF this book sooner. I guess I kept trying to push on hoping that the story would become more engaging at some point. For me, that point never came. I feel like I was a victim of a lot of hype with no payoff at the end. I am an outlier, so please read other stellar reviews of this book such as Paromjit's.
Thank you to the publisher Atria books for providing an advance reader copy via NetGalley.
I was lured into reading this book by the setting of Victorian London, the promise of gothic suspense, and a grand, almost poetic writing style. The final selling point was my Goodreads friend Paromjit's magnificent 5 Star review. The writing style was grandiose, indeed. While often beautiful, atmospheric and descriptive, it sometimes left me feeling like it was too much work reading it. In addition, I had trouble keeping track of all the characters, nor did I much care about them except for one: a handsome, deceased Irish boxer named Ruby. He had an extraordinary collection of tattoos over his body that would undulate as if they were alive. He faithfully followed around the main character "Bridie" who came to find his company both appealing and comforting.
The story involves physicians who at that time were always looking for bodies to experiment on to learn new surgical procedures. There is also an obsession with a kind of female human/mermaid hybrid creature who has pike teeth and can be extremely dangerous. These oddities can be "things in jars" or performers in a travelling circus.
Bridget or "Bridie" (as we come to know the main character) was rescued from poverty in Ireland by a physician. He welcomed her into his home where she was cleaned up and made to wear the rich clothing left behind by his late daughter. She had a propensity for medicine and the doctor encouraged her to accompany him on his medical travels. At that time women were not allowed to be physicians and Bridie was not above wearing disguises in order to witness a surgery with other gentlemen. She is now widowed and living off an annuity along with her 7 foot tall household helper Cora. Bridie has a reputation for helping out police detectives on cases and is recruited to find a missing daughter.
I keep asking myself why I didn't DNF this book sooner. I guess I kept trying to push on hoping that the story would become more engaging at some point. For me, that point never came. I feel like I was a victim of a lot of hype with no payoff at the end. I am an outlier, so please read other stellar reviews of this book such as Paromjit's.
Thank you to the publisher Atria books for providing an advance reader copy via NetGalley.
April 8, 2022
A difficult book to put into any category, Things in Jars is a magnificent trip down the Victorian rabbit hole. It has many things: an unconventional love story, a kick-ass heroine, an unlovable, but poignant child/monster, the seedy side of London, and the power of friends in the darkness. I haven't loved a book so much since The Observations by Jane Harris, which I read last year.
Both books are set in the Victorian era, are full of wonderful characters (especially the women), have gritty settings, and are essentially about friendship. The Observations is more realistic with a dash of the absurd and some laugh-out loud moments, but also heartbreaking. Things in Jars is more magical, it has a ghost, an otherworldly sea creature, extremely evil henchmen and a disgustingly vile henchwoman. It is a roller coaster ride which you don't want to get off of. I didn't read too many reviews of this and I'm glad I didn't, because the surprises came quickly and often. I think there needs to be a sequel, another mystery for Bridie Devine to solve would be splendid.
Both books are set in the Victorian era, are full of wonderful characters (especially the women), have gritty settings, and are essentially about friendship. The Observations is more realistic with a dash of the absurd and some laugh-out loud moments, but also heartbreaking. Things in Jars is more magical, it has a ghost, an otherworldly sea creature, extremely evil henchmen and a disgustingly vile henchwoman. It is a roller coaster ride which you don't want to get off of. I didn't read too many reviews of this and I'm glad I didn't, because the surprises came quickly and often. I think there needs to be a sequel, another mystery for Bridie Devine to solve would be splendid.
February 4, 2020
I have had Jess Kidd on my reading list for a long time. It was fun to finally dig into this gothic mystery.
Things in Jars reminded me a little of another book from Atria I read last year, The Doll Factory, because of the gothic darkness. This one had more fantasy elements and touches of whimsy, too, which I loved. I also enjoyed the Victorian London setting.
What a tough time to live in the city! Thieves, murderers, and medicine that was possibly more dangerous than helpful. My favorite aspect of all was the storytelling. It almost had an old-fashioned flair, and I was hanging on her every word. Fans of Diane Setterfield should not miss this author because they both have the whimsy and strong storytelling for these types of stories. Overall, Things in Jars was a winner for me.
I received a gifted copy from the publisher.
Many of my reviews can also be found on instagram: www.instagram.com/tarheelreader and my blog: www.jennifertarheelreader.com
Things in Jars reminded me a little of another book from Atria I read last year, The Doll Factory, because of the gothic darkness. This one had more fantasy elements and touches of whimsy, too, which I loved. I also enjoyed the Victorian London setting.
What a tough time to live in the city! Thieves, murderers, and medicine that was possibly more dangerous than helpful. My favorite aspect of all was the storytelling. It almost had an old-fashioned flair, and I was hanging on her every word. Fans of Diane Setterfield should not miss this author because they both have the whimsy and strong storytelling for these types of stories. Overall, Things in Jars was a winner for me.
I received a gifted copy from the publisher.
Many of my reviews can also be found on instagram: www.instagram.com/tarheelreader and my blog: www.jennifertarheelreader.com
December 23, 2019
THINGS IN JARS by Jess Kidd is a gothic story set in Victorian London in the 1860s with a few flashback chapters in the 1830s and 1830s. Birdie Devine is a female detective that takes on domestic investigations and does minor surgeries. She has two cases, one given to her by Inspector Valentine Rose of Scotland Yard, and a second one when she is hired by Sir Edmund Athelstan Berwick to find his kidnapped daughter.
Kidd des a great job of writing in such a way that you not only hear what’s happening, but you can see it vividly, and even experience the unfortunate smells of the time. The story is somewhat gruesome and shocking at times and there is a paranormal aspect to it as well. It is gritty and dark at times and, at other times, it takes on a lighter tone.
The characters are compelling, fascinating, and felt three-dimensional with clear motivations. There was enough at stake to keep me engaged throughout the story. The world-building was absolutely fantastic and gave a clear sense of time and place.
Overall, this was an entertaining book that I would recommend to those that enjoy stories set in Victorian London and like a little paranormal and a bit of romance in their stories.
Thanks to Atria Books and Jess Kidd for a digital ARC of this novel via NetGalley and the opportunity to provide an honest review. Opinions are mine alone and are not biased in any way.
Kidd des a great job of writing in such a way that you not only hear what’s happening, but you can see it vividly, and even experience the unfortunate smells of the time. The story is somewhat gruesome and shocking at times and there is a paranormal aspect to it as well. It is gritty and dark at times and, at other times, it takes on a lighter tone.
The characters are compelling, fascinating, and felt three-dimensional with clear motivations. There was enough at stake to keep me engaged throughout the story. The world-building was absolutely fantastic and gave a clear sense of time and place.
Overall, this was an entertaining book that I would recommend to those that enjoy stories set in Victorian London and like a little paranormal and a bit of romance in their stories.
Thanks to Atria Books and Jess Kidd for a digital ARC of this novel via NetGalley and the opportunity to provide an honest review. Opinions are mine alone and are not biased in any way.
February 4, 2020
2.5 stars I enjoyed the setting, but the narration was tiresome. The unique imaginative elements were great and the vivid characters were interesting.
It is a whimsical tale with fluent descriptions. Because of the excessive descriptions, I was often not engaged. Each chapter would start out with lengthy descriptions before getting along to anything else. The pacing of detective work from chapter to chapter was slow moving; the case of the missing girl seemed to inch along.
To best honest, I really struggled to get through this overall. It wasn't for me. I rounded up to three stars though because of its sizable originality and solid gothic-Victorian setting.
I received an advanced copy from NetGalley. Opinions are my own.
It is a whimsical tale with fluent descriptions. Because of the excessive descriptions, I was often not engaged. Each chapter would start out with lengthy descriptions before getting along to anything else. The pacing of detective work from chapter to chapter was slow moving; the case of the missing girl seemed to inch along.
To best honest, I really struggled to get through this overall. It wasn't for me. I rounded up to three stars though because of its sizable originality and solid gothic-Victorian setting.
I received an advanced copy from NetGalley. Opinions are my own.
February 4, 2020
NOW AVAILABLE!!!
”Have you reason to be bothering that corpse, madam?”
it took me a damn long time to get through this book, which is the fate of pretty much anything i stupidly decide to read during the weeks leading up to christmas, so don’t read anything into this admission; i’m just making with the context up-front. it is a gorgeous book, cover-wise* and content-wise, but itrequires deserves a reader who isn’t sluggish and overburdened. next holiday season, i am only reading airport thrillers.
so, nota bene: it is not a book to attempt when your mind is likely to be distracted by a million anxieties and fires to put out. (if they are figurative fires, it’s your call, but if you have literal fires to put out, those should always come before reading, ya nerd!) it is a slower-paced book with shifts in time, a central mystery plot the reader is string-dangled away from into several additional mystery plots, and a large cast of characters whose agendas and allegiances are slippery and may not be what they seem, requiring several mental cubbyholes for sorting. ordinarily, all of these things would be selling points to me, rather than hindrances, but right book/right time &etc.
ANYWAY, ENOUGH ABOUT ME
this was presented to me as a book i would love because i loved The Book of Speculation and i can see the comparison, although this book is way grittier and bloodier shudder. both books involve secrets and personal or family mysteries threaded through with magic, and also mermaids. in BOS, they are circus mermaids, in this, they are…much scarier; a proto-mermaid creature new to me—the merrow.
WOT'S A MERROW?
”A marine nightmare and the stuff of legends, something like a violent mermaid, I dare say.”
or, more colorfully,
“A memory-reading, dry-land-drowning, man-biting sea lunatic.”
!!!
the quicksell of this is that it's a magical-mystery-historical—a victorian-london underbelly novel helmed by bridie devine—a sturdy, pipe-smoking, detective and cause-of-death savant who is called upon for the more...unusual deaths, of which there is no shortage.
this case is presented as a missing-child case but turns out to be something altogether different, and there will be plenty of deaths and murders to challenge bridie along the way, as well as the stream of acquaintances old and new, welcome and unwelcome. the most notable new/old welcome/unwelcome pal is the shirtless ghost of a tattooed boxer named ruby doyle who begins following bridie around, flirty and besotted and coy, refusing to tell her how they know (knew) each other, teasingly trying to stoke her memory AND ALSO THE FIRE IN HER LOINS.
there are many high points in this book: bridie and ruby are highly enjoyable characters, and their banter and relationship and o’ the unfairness of the girl-and-ghost love story holds great appeal. and cora—cora is a knockout supporting character; stubble-chinned, seven feet tall, and as loyal as they come, rescued from a bear cage and into bridie’s service as housemaid, confidant and backup muscle. she excels in two of these three roles.
the atmosphere, the descriptions, the whole blending of the victorian street squalor with fantastical creature fantasy makes for an engaging and immersive read. that narrative is broken up by chapters exploring bridie's past from scrappy-urchin childhood, through a series of mentors teaching her street crime and medicine, which i loved even more than the 'present-day' 'where's the pointy-toothed child?' storyline.
but yeah, the plot is more intricate than my dozy, distracted brain could handle at the time i read it. it definitely deserves a reread, when i’m better able to focus on the density of the plot, the time shifts, and the large cast of characters. although i was occasionally confused and mixing up characters and having to go back to reorient myself, the parts that i dug i dug hard, so i'm rounding my felt-3 1/2 to a 4 because it's not the book's fault december is so bad.
i would like to read this again, in a better headspace, and i don't say that about many books.
*do you see those tiny shiny snails? so cute!!!
come to my blog!
”Have you reason to be bothering that corpse, madam?”
it took me a damn long time to get through this book, which is the fate of pretty much anything i stupidly decide to read during the weeks leading up to christmas, so don’t read anything into this admission; i’m just making with the context up-front. it is a gorgeous book, cover-wise* and content-wise, but it
so, nota bene: it is not a book to attempt when your mind is likely to be distracted by a million anxieties and fires to put out. (if they are figurative fires, it’s your call, but if you have literal fires to put out, those should always come before reading, ya nerd!) it is a slower-paced book with shifts in time, a central mystery plot the reader is string-dangled away from into several additional mystery plots, and a large cast of characters whose agendas and allegiances are slippery and may not be what they seem, requiring several mental cubbyholes for sorting. ordinarily, all of these things would be selling points to me, rather than hindrances, but right book/right time &etc.
ANYWAY, ENOUGH ABOUT ME
this was presented to me as a book i would love because i loved The Book of Speculation and i can see the comparison, although this book is way grittier and bloodier shudder. both books involve secrets and personal or family mysteries threaded through with magic, and also mermaids. in BOS, they are circus mermaids, in this, they are…much scarier; a proto-mermaid creature new to me—the merrow.
WOT'S A MERROW?
”A marine nightmare and the stuff of legends, something like a violent mermaid, I dare say.”
or, more colorfully,
“A memory-reading, dry-land-drowning, man-biting sea lunatic.”
!!!
the quicksell of this is that it's a magical-mystery-historical—a victorian-london underbelly novel helmed by bridie devine—a sturdy, pipe-smoking, detective and cause-of-death savant who is called upon for the more...unusual deaths, of which there is no shortage.
London is awash with the freshly murdered. Bodies appear hourly, blooming in doorways with their throats cut, prone in alleyways with the head knocked in. Half-burnt in hearths and garroted in garrets, folded into trunks or bobbing about in the Thames, great bloated shoals of them.
this case is presented as a missing-child case but turns out to be something altogether different, and there will be plenty of deaths and murders to challenge bridie along the way, as well as the stream of acquaintances old and new, welcome and unwelcome. the most notable new/old welcome/unwelcome pal is the shirtless ghost of a tattooed boxer named ruby doyle who begins following bridie around, flirty and besotted and coy, refusing to tell her how they know (knew) each other, teasingly trying to stoke her memory AND ALSO THE FIRE IN HER LOINS.
there are many high points in this book: bridie and ruby are highly enjoyable characters, and their banter and relationship and o’ the unfairness of the girl-and-ghost love story holds great appeal. and cora—cora is a knockout supporting character; stubble-chinned, seven feet tall, and as loyal as they come, rescued from a bear cage and into bridie’s service as housemaid, confidant and backup muscle. she excels in two of these three roles.
the atmosphere, the descriptions, the whole blending of the victorian street squalor with fantastical creature fantasy makes for an engaging and immersive read. that narrative is broken up by chapters exploring bridie's past from scrappy-urchin childhood, through a series of mentors teaching her street crime and medicine, which i loved even more than the 'present-day' 'where's the pointy-toothed child?' storyline.
but yeah, the plot is more intricate than my dozy, distracted brain could handle at the time i read it. it definitely deserves a reread, when i’m better able to focus on the density of the plot, the time shifts, and the large cast of characters. although i was occasionally confused and mixing up characters and having to go back to reorient myself, the parts that i dug i dug hard, so i'm rounding my felt-3 1/2 to a 4 because it's not the book's fault december is so bad.
i would like to read this again, in a better headspace, and i don't say that about many books.
*do you see those tiny shiny snails? so cute!!!
come to my blog!
February 2, 2020
DNF @ 50%.
So much for me to love about this novel. A dark 1800's Victorian London, a fearless and compassionate pipe-smoking, red-haired sleuth-type with a horror of a past....and a knack for reading corpses, an infatuated, muscled tattooed ghost man, a mysterious missing girl with piked teeth and unique supernatural powers....plus more!
But.... had a difficult time staying focused. Time-line changes don't bother me, nor does a complex storyline, but the interspersed excessive descriptive narration wore me down. So after four days of struggling thru this read, am throwing in the towel and moving on.
So many of my Goodread's friends really loved this gothic tale so please DO read their reviews. Am giving THINGS IN JARS a 3 Star rating for its mighty good imaginative characters.
Many thanks to Atria Books via NetGalley for the arc in exchange for an honest review.
January 1, 2020
"London is awash with the freshly murdered...Bridie has a talent for the reading of corpses: the tale of life and death written on everybody." Bridie Devine, "a small, round, upright woman of around thirty...with ...vivid red hair tucked...inside her white widow's cap...might be called by Inspector Valentine Rose of Scotland Yard to determine the cause of a bizarre or inexplicable death. The "dark underbelly of Victorian London" in 1863 included kidnapping, a seemingly profitable venture. One could demand a ransom, provide a specimen to a private anatomist, or deliver a curiosity to a traveling circus.
Bridie Devine was devastated. Recently, she failed to find a lost child. She was hesitant to embark upon a quest to find another missing child, Christabel Berwick, the five year old daughter of Sir Edmund Berwick, a baronet. Christabel was anything but ordinary. She had been secreted away, her existence known only to a select few. "Christabel makes you 'remember'...memories you hardly knew you had...she also makes you think 'thoughts'...not entirely your own..."
Bridie enlisted help in her search for Christabel. Ever since she rescued seven foot Cora Butter from a bear cage in a traveling circus, Cora had been Bridie's devoted housemaid. Cora read Penny Dreadfuls and enjoyed singing hymns in "her glorious baritone". Mr. Ruby Doyle was a tattooed ghost, a former pugilist, who appeared to Bridie decked out in a top hat, boots and wearing only his draws. Rumold Fortitude Prudhoe, an experimental chemist and toxicologist, made sure Bridie's pipe was filled with Bronchial Balsam Blend, a "recreational creation".
"Things in Jars" by Jess Kidd provides the reader with entry into the world of collectors trading in curiosities, unethical medical practices, and newfangled methods of specimen preservation. Dark, macabre story elements are tempered with wicked humor. Riding in the Brighton +South Coast Railway Carriage, passengers express concern about a small woman [Bridie] sitting in second class "...whispering emphatically to the empty seat opposite her [Ruby Doyle]". Bridie exclaims, "I am forced to make my own entertainment, sir, which is talking to this...seat." Author Jess Kidd has written an amazing Victorian detective mystery replete with breathtaking prose.
Thank you Atria Books and Net Galley for the opportunity to read and review "Things in Jars".
Bridie Devine was devastated. Recently, she failed to find a lost child. She was hesitant to embark upon a quest to find another missing child, Christabel Berwick, the five year old daughter of Sir Edmund Berwick, a baronet. Christabel was anything but ordinary. She had been secreted away, her existence known only to a select few. "Christabel makes you 'remember'...memories you hardly knew you had...she also makes you think 'thoughts'...not entirely your own..."
Bridie enlisted help in her search for Christabel. Ever since she rescued seven foot Cora Butter from a bear cage in a traveling circus, Cora had been Bridie's devoted housemaid. Cora read Penny Dreadfuls and enjoyed singing hymns in "her glorious baritone". Mr. Ruby Doyle was a tattooed ghost, a former pugilist, who appeared to Bridie decked out in a top hat, boots and wearing only his draws. Rumold Fortitude Prudhoe, an experimental chemist and toxicologist, made sure Bridie's pipe was filled with Bronchial Balsam Blend, a "recreational creation".
"Things in Jars" by Jess Kidd provides the reader with entry into the world of collectors trading in curiosities, unethical medical practices, and newfangled methods of specimen preservation. Dark, macabre story elements are tempered with wicked humor. Riding in the Brighton +South Coast Railway Carriage, passengers express concern about a small woman [Bridie] sitting in second class "...whispering emphatically to the empty seat opposite her [Ruby Doyle]". Bridie exclaims, "I am forced to make my own entertainment, sir, which is talking to this...seat." Author Jess Kidd has written an amazing Victorian detective mystery replete with breathtaking prose.
Thank you Atria Books and Net Galley for the opportunity to read and review "Things in Jars".
Read
February 20, 2020DNF 22%
I might have liked this story but I couldn't get past the overly ornate writing.
Definitely not my jar of tea.
** I recieved a ARC from the publisher in exchange for an honest opinion. **
I might have liked this story but I couldn't get past the overly ornate writing.
Definitely not my jar of tea.
** I recieved a ARC from the publisher in exchange for an honest opinion. **
Displaying 1 - 30 of 3,899 reviews