The Fiend in the Fog

by Jess Faraday

1885, East London Abigail and Gideon are under siege. Noxious fogs have been bringing their clinic waves of indigent patients with inexplicable symptoms, telling wild tales of a demonic presence in the fog. If that’s not enough, someone wants the clinic for themselves, and they’re using the force of law to get it. On the other side of town, heiress Meg Eisenstadt and her brother Nat live a life of well-intentioned aimless luxury. She dabbles in social justice causes and he pursues alchemy. And in a secret lab in the depths of Whitechapel, disgraced physician Jin Wylie attempts to rebuild his shattered life by performing dubious research for a shadowy cabal. They live in separate worlds on different trajectories until the mysterious fiend in the fog brings them together. Abigail and Meg discover a shared passion for social justice, and for one another. But where does that leave her plans with Gideon? And what of the future of the clinic? Gideon has his own monster. Can he keep it in check without Abigail’s constant presence? Does Dr. Wylie’s research hold the solution to Gideon’s problems, or is it the cause of them? And could Nat’s own dabblings be the key to defeating the vicious killer in the fog?

Genres: Fantasy, Historical Fiction

224 pages, Kindle Edition

Published August 1, 2021

About the author

Jess Faraday is the author of the award-winning Ira Adler historical mysteries, the standalone steampunk adventure The Left Hand of Justice and a number of historical adventures in short story and novella form.

Her novella, The Strange Case of the Big Sur Benefactor, won a Rainbow Award for Lesbian Historical. Fool's Gold won a Rainbow Award for Best Gay Historical, and was a runner-up for Best Gay Novel. Turnbull House was a runner-up for Best Gay Historical, and The Affair of the Porcelain Dog was both a Lambda Awards finalist, and won Honorable Mention for Best Novel of the Year from Speak Its Name.

She has edited several award-winning short story collections for Elm Books, including Death and a Cup of Tea (one of Foreword Review's top Indie mysteries of 2015), Undeath and the Detective (Finalist for a Silver Falchion Award for Best Multi-Author Anthology), and Fae Love, which won an Aspen Gold Reader's Choice Award.

You can read more about Jess and her books at http://www.jessfaraday.com

Reviews

[Betty · Rating 2 out of 5]

I’m afraid I really struggled reading The Fiend in the Fog by Jess Faraday. I was hoping it would be a much better story than it turned out to be.

The cover of the book caught my attention. It is a very good cover. The blurb sounded interesting as well. Historical fiction is one of my favorite genres, and the idea of a paranormal tale set in the East End of London in the 1880’s encouraged me to try this novel. The setting is probably one of the best things about the book. It is a great place to put a paranormal tale since this part of London during the late 1800’s already has a scary and eerie reputation due to the horrible pollution that ravaged the place, the extreme poverty of the inhabitants, and of course, Jack the Ripper using some of these streets as his hunting grounds. The author did a good job of describing this area as well as the buildings the story takes place in. These descriptions lets the reader see the fog rolling through the streets, smell the stink of the river mud and the sulfur fumes in the fog, and feel the dank chill of the air. These descriptions were the best part of the book for me.

The problems I have with this book are mainly with the characters. First of all, there are twelve of them. They are listed at the beginning of the book as the heroes of the tale, and then they all seem take turns at being the main character. The story is told in third person, through the eyes of almost all of these people. The author head hopped. Every chapter was seen through a different person, and sometimes the change happened multiple times in a chapter. Because of the head hopping and the sheer number of (main) characters, none of them really had a chance at being developed. They were all surface characters. I believe some of them were supposed to be satirical, but unfortunately, they ended up looking cartoonish. I didn’t connect with any of them, and truthfully, I had trouble figuring out who the real main character was. I’m still not sure I chose correctly.

I’m giving this book a 2.5 star rating. I really can’t recommend this book. However, the author has several other books that have good reviews. This novel is hopefully just a glitch, and I will look for other books from her in the future.

I received an ARC from NetGalley and Bold Strokes Books for an honest review.

[Colleen Corgel · Rating 2 out of 5]

Even 2 Stars. I just couldn't get into this one. I like the premise - there's an almost preternatural serial killer who comes out of an odd green colored fog in late 19th century London. You have a quirky band of very queer characters who have to solve the mystery lest one of them be next. That's an amazing idea, and I think I would have loved this way more if not for a couple of things that just made the whole thing feel disjointed and rushed.

I don't mind reading multiple POV's, but this story had around six or seven people narrating the thing. On top of that, they are all from different areas and come from different perspectives, so it doesn't feel like they are telling the same story. This may be intentional, to convey a sense of chaos, but it made it really hard for me to latch on to characters and actually make me care for what happens to them. And because of that, you have a throuple that was seemingly revealed at the end of the story. I wanted to know how it happened, not 'I guess we're a thing, now.' Same thing with Abigail - she notices the pretty Meg, but almost no time is given to developing any kind of relationship between the two. Then the epilogue shows that they are now a couple. I was like, wait, what? And ended up re-reading the last like 50 pages to try to figure out where that came from. Almost no hint, beyond both women thinking the other is hot. Again, I felt almost no attachment to any one of these characters, but I liked some of them. And their stories just felt slapped together.

I am not fond of giving two star or lower reviews, but this one just didn't do it for me. I felt almost no attachment to the characters or the story, and thought the whole thing was just a bit of a janky mess.

*I received this ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

[Joyfully Jay · Rating 2 out of 5]

A Joyfully Jay review.

2.5 stars

Unfortunately, the ideas promised by this book were buried beneath the execution. The story shifts between the points of view of nine characters … and yet, they all felt interchangeable, so instead of nine versions of one story, it felt like one character with nine names telling a clumsy, disjointed story. It’s as if one character picked up tonally and personality-wise where the last one left off. It makes for very tiring and frustrating moments where one character will instantly know the gender, the sexual preference, and/or the relationship status of another person within moments of meeting them. Characters fall in love with a handshake before words are even spoken, and trust implicitly someone they have no reason to trust. The plot is full of overly contrived plotting with every character converging at the same place at the same time.

Read Elizabeth’s review in its entirety here.

[Shriya Uday · Rating 2 out of 5]

Really disappointed as I enjoyed the author's other books, particularly her ability to write complex relationships. The plot and characters could have been great if they hadn't been cramped up. It needed more space to breathe, for the reader to connect with the characters and for them to connect to each other. It also needed it's polyamorous relationship suddenly happen on the last page.

[Raychel · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a fun read. To be honest, it was nothing like I expected. But that can be fun sometimes!

The Fiend in the Fog follows two groups of people. Abigail and Gideon are betrothed and together run a free clinic. By day Gideon is a doctor, but by night he is something else. That is, unless Abigail can continue to procure a strange elixir that postpones the transformation. Nat Eisenstadt is an alchemist and academic attempting to publish his research after an expulsion from University. He has a relationship with Dr. Jin Wylie (who apparently has a *snatched* waist) that we do not know many details of. Nat's sister, Meg, is a budding suffragette interested in many social causes. How are all of these people connected when they follow drastically different paths in life?

I enjoyed the queerness of this book the most. While there were occasionally some raised eyebrows, the gay individuals (of which there are a surprising number!) are largely left to their own devices. There is a fun smattering of individuals of different ages, classes, abilities, and educations. The part that fell short for me was the mystery aspect. I thought it was a bit too obvious, in my opinion. I liked the monster element though! Still a quick, entertaining read.

**I received an eARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Big thanks to NetGalley and the publisher!

[Bren · Rating 3 out of 5]

*Thank you NetGalley and publishers for the ARC. All thoughts and opinions are my own*

I wanted so badly to love this book. Unfortunately, I think a few things missed the mark here. There's a few main characters and they are listed at the beginning of the book because it's a lot to keep track of. I'll have to admit that I'd like to do a good job with a synopsis, but I have a hard time really nailing down what the overarching storyline actually was. From a 30,000 foot view, there's a fog that comes in and with it comes a demonic presence. This presence brings all the main characters together to some degree and opens up quite a few storylines that have a supernatural theme. From the synopsis, I thought this was going to have a better LGBTQ relationship storyline, but there wasn't much. I think Jess Faraday is an excellent writer in the sense that her words and descriptions are really great. However, I think this book could have been better organized from an overall story standpoint. There definitely could have been a lot more character building, but most was very superficial.

Ultimately, I had a hard time getting through the book and will likely not read again.

[Penny · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had never heard of this author, but the blurb sounded good. I started reading, and I was a little thrown when there was a glossary at the front of the book of characters and realizing it takes place in the past (not my favorite). The many characters didn’t really endear me as I don’t like many characters to keep track of, but it really wasn’t a problem even if I didn’t really like that. I did love the atmospheric descriptions that made me feel like I was there no matter which character’s POV we were in at the moment. This book was well-written, the plot creepy (in a good way), and the characters were interesting, but it really wasn’t for me (though it was pretty good) but I can see where others might really enjoy it; I’m just not into books that take place in the past. Recommend.

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

1885 London. A mixture of characters ranging from the middle classe life of the Eisenstadts, to the free clinic of Abigail Gordon, nurse and Dr Gideon Spencer. But who and what are The Consortium. Everyone seems to have their secrets, does that include the 'Scrappy Street Kids'. What is in the fog that surrounds them, what does it want of them if anything.
The story is told from multiple points of views.
An entertaining paranormal story, with its cast of varied characters, some more likeable than others.
An ARC was provided by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

[Dr E · Rating 3 out of 5]

An excellent plot that starts off a bit slow, but soon develops into a proper Victorian melodrama, replete with London smog, old spooky buildings and young gangs. Cracking pace which adds intrigue, but also makes it a a little difficult to keep track of everyone as many of the characters are a bit similar and only lightly sketched out. The names at the top of the section didn’t help much. I mixed some of the people up and had to keep checking who was who, especially the women. Enjoyable read though.

[Stevie Carroll · Rating 3 out of 5]

To be reviewed on The Good, The Bad, and The Unread.