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3.36 AVERAGE
3.36 AVERAGE
This is the first of a series and as such is a little long winded. There is much more information provided that is really needed to tell the story but as it is the start of a series I suspect much of the information will be needed in later stories.
I received an ARC from Netgalley.
I really enjoyed this book. Great mystery and characters. Can't wait for the next one!
I really enjoyed this book. Great mystery and characters. Can't wait for the next one!
Early 17th Century. Gabriel retires from the British navy and opens his surgeon practice in a village near family. His sister's husband is killed and the mystery ensues. A bit trivial yet still convoluted. While the way he treats his sister might be real for the time, it's annoying. Still, the pacing is good and the characters have an ok start.
adventurous
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Good main character, some plot holes (not sure the explanation for why Tobias was so worried about someone finding him that he had to kill people who were not much threat to him, (eg the doctor's daughter, even the Pieter guy). Someone of his talents could have disappeared easily. Would Tavener have pursued him? Probably not, he'd been prepared to put the whole thing behind him earlier, and since he suspected his sister killed her husband, even more reason for him to forget about the whole mess.
What really troubled me was how Claire's murder of Jeromy was forgiven because he abused her. A crime of passion would've been understandable. Premeditated murder, not so much. Too many people willing to be judge, jury and executioner and mostly to protect themselves.
What really troubled me was how Claire's murder of Jeromy was forgiven because he abused her. A crime of passion would've been understandable. Premeditated murder, not so much. Too many people willing to be judge, jury and executioner and mostly to protect themselves.
For some reason, I've found that often when a novel is set in the 1600's the characters bear about the same resemblance to lifelike human beings as characters in an unenthusiastic high school play. By the time the author has stamped them with the mold of "Elizabethan Character" – thee and ye and dost and old by forty and doublets and stomachers – most of the personality has been stamped out, and it becomes rather hard going to get through the book.
Alys Clare overcame that obstacle beautifully. First person narrator Gabriel Taverner is a wonderful character, a life–long ship's surgeon who would still be mending sailors if not for the accident that destroyed his equilibrium. He's full of life, and feels contemporary. "Very slowly and quietly, I bent forward and banged my head several times on the gleaming surface of my oak table." I have my doubts about his abilities and commitment as a physician; he has picked up a great deal of unorthodox knowledge from the natives of a great many far-flung places, some of which runs counter to the current trends. Still, he seems to keep picking up books to hone his knowledge of "civilized" medicine, and keeps getting distracted – and when he needs to hie him off to investigate this or that or the other, he never seems to have any concern about his patients' care during his absence.
One thing that's rather wonderful about him is a lovely obtuseness. He is the first-person narrator of the story, and his realizations and brainstorms are realistically handled in such a way to clue the reader in. He's a very good character; I hope he has better surroundings in another book.
Something I kept wondering about, which I know very little more about than that it existed, is the code of sumptuary laws. I first discovered them when I was getting into Renaissance Faires, when it surprised me that if I wanted to be historically accurate I had to decide where in society my persona fell and dress accordingly, avoiding certain fabrics and certain colors. (From 1562: No Englishman other than the son and heir apparent of a knight, or he that hath yearly revenues of £20 or is worth in goods £200, shall wear silk in or upon his hat, cap, night cap, girdles, scabbard, hose, shoes, or spur-leathers, upon forfeiture of £10 for every day, and imprisonment by three months.) Yet Gabriel's sister wears the finest silk day in and day out.
There were a handful of off words sprinkled throughout – I don't, for example, think that someone would refer to a man as being "broke", meaning penniless. (Then again, maybe they would – the adjective has a surprisingly long history. I wouldn't have thought it, and I think I'd avoid it because it doesn't sound right.) "Frenchie"; "get over it" – these were the ones I made note of. Borderline – and as such, enough to take me out of the story just a bit.
There were moments when the author revealed a bit or a piece which seemed like they ought to have been mentioned earlier. It was sort of the opposite of Chekhov's gun, with a shot going off suddenly leaving me wondering how. The origin of the murder weapon, for example – which I won't spoil here – seemed frankly kind of stupid and, till then, not even hinted at, not something the reader could remotely guess at.
It was a quick and easy and enjoyable read, but somewhat weak in areas. I enjoyed the writer's writing, but wish it had been more even and cohesive. There were excellent elements, but they were like beads on a long string, with thin bits in between. I'd like to try more of the series, in hopes of a stronger plot.
The usual disclaimer: I received this book via Netgalley for review.
Alys Clare overcame that obstacle beautifully. First person narrator Gabriel Taverner is a wonderful character, a life–long ship's surgeon who would still be mending sailors if not for the accident that destroyed his equilibrium. He's full of life, and feels contemporary. "Very slowly and quietly, I bent forward and banged my head several times on the gleaming surface of my oak table." I have my doubts about his abilities and commitment as a physician; he has picked up a great deal of unorthodox knowledge from the natives of a great many far-flung places, some of which runs counter to the current trends. Still, he seems to keep picking up books to hone his knowledge of "civilized" medicine, and keeps getting distracted – and when he needs to hie him off to investigate this or that or the other, he never seems to have any concern about his patients' care during his absence.
One thing that's rather wonderful about him is a lovely obtuseness. He is the first-person narrator of the story, and his realizations and brainstorms are realistically handled in such a way to clue the reader in. He's a very good character; I hope he has better surroundings in another book.
Something I kept wondering about, which I know very little more about than that it existed, is the code of sumptuary laws. I first discovered them when I was getting into Renaissance Faires, when it surprised me that if I wanted to be historically accurate I had to decide where in society my persona fell and dress accordingly, avoiding certain fabrics and certain colors. (From 1562: No Englishman other than the son and heir apparent of a knight, or he that hath yearly revenues of £20 or is worth in goods £200, shall wear silk in or upon his hat, cap, night cap, girdles, scabbard, hose, shoes, or spur-leathers, upon forfeiture of £10 for every day, and imprisonment by three months.) Yet Gabriel's sister wears the finest silk day in and day out.
There were a handful of off words sprinkled throughout – I don't, for example, think that someone would refer to a man as being "broke", meaning penniless. (Then again, maybe they would – the adjective has a surprisingly long history. I wouldn't have thought it, and I think I'd avoid it because it doesn't sound right.) "Frenchie"; "get over it" – these were the ones I made note of. Borderline – and as such, enough to take me out of the story just a bit.
There were moments when the author revealed a bit or a piece which seemed like they ought to have been mentioned earlier. It was sort of the opposite of Chekhov's gun, with a shot going off suddenly leaving me wondering how. The origin of the murder weapon, for example – which I won't spoil here – seemed frankly kind of stupid and, till then, not even hinted at, not something the reader could remotely guess at.
It was a quick and easy and enjoyable read, but somewhat weak in areas. I enjoyed the writer's writing, but wish it had been more even and cohesive. There were excellent elements, but they were like beads on a long string, with thin bits in between. I'd like to try more of the series, in hopes of a stronger plot.
The usual disclaimer: I received this book via Netgalley for review.
Well, let me wake myself up a little to write this review...
This whole book was just one, big "meh" for me. Picking it up randomly I had high hopes. A mystery set in the 1600's? That's by far the oldest time frame (that I can remember anyways) that I have read a story set in. I expected something to make me feel like I was reading events from the 1600's. Instead, it could have just been set 100 years ago. Basically zero world building. Not to mention being totally predictable from pretty early on in the story.
No world building, no problem. At least the characters were interesting.
Neerrrrrppp. Painfully boring set of characters. Overall, there's nothing redeemable about this story.
I'll sum this book up to hopefully save someone else the trouble...
Dude dies, some things happen, it's predictably solved.
You're welcome.
This whole book was just one, big "meh" for me. Picking it up randomly I had high hopes. A mystery set in the 1600's? That's by far the oldest time frame (that I can remember anyways) that I have read a story set in. I expected something to make me feel like I was reading events from the 1600's. Instead, it could have just been set 100 years ago. Basically zero world building. Not to mention being totally predictable from pretty early on in the story.
No world building, no problem. At least the characters were interesting.
Neerrrrrppp. Painfully boring set of characters. Overall, there's nothing redeemable about this story.
I'll sum this book up to hopefully save someone else the trouble...
Dude dies, some things happen, it's predictably solved.
You're welcome.
The story takes place in 1604 in Devon, England. The main protagonist is Gabriel Taverner, a country physician. The local coroner asks him to view a corpse and agree on cause of death. The corpse is his brother-in-law. Not meant to be a "cozy" mystery, I don't think, it felt like one. The story included more about Gabriel's every day life than about the actual mystery. Not a page turner but an enjoyable read with some English history thrown in.
dark
emotional
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
i am shocked, shocked to find ratings for this above a 3. i even ventured into the depths of the other book site to see what people were saying there and they're being even MORE complimentary about it! i read 3 chapters and preemptively posted on tumblr that this was going to be a 1-star book and that choosing between putting it down for my own sanity and powering through so i could review it was "my very own sophie's choice."
the first 4 chapters or so are firmly in the 1-star range. the rest of the book just barely squeaks by into being a 2-star. though a rustle of silk is the only one of alys clare's books i've picked up (and to be honest, i am not about to read another), i can safely say that it is proof that historical mysteries are a publishing cash cow at this point, if you have a unique enough setting that will fill a niche, you don't need to worry about whether or not you book is, y'know, actually well-written. you don't need to be good at your job or care about what you're writing, you just have to have enough ideas to be able to wring every shred of life from your original gimmick until publishing decides they're no longer interested.
let's break down the myriad of problems with a nice numbered list
the first 4 chapters or so are firmly in the 1-star range. the rest of the book just barely squeaks by into being a 2-star. though a rustle of silk is the only one of alys clare's books i've picked up (and to be honest, i am not about to read another), i can safely say that it is proof that historical mysteries are a publishing cash cow at this point, if you have a unique enough setting that will fill a niche, you don't need to worry about whether or not you book is, y'know, actually well-written. you don't need to be good at your job or care about what you're writing, you just have to have enough ideas to be able to wring every shred of life from your original gimmick until publishing decides they're no longer interested.
let's break down the myriad of problems with a nice numbered list
1. the info-dumping
- this is really only a problem for the first three or four chapters but jesus christ is it a Problem. the first chapter there's a long ramble detailing gabriel's family tree which serves no purpose that i could tell. the second chapter has a similar ramble about surgical techniques while gabe is trying to prevent a dude from losing his arm, sir you have bigger things to worry about than explaining the sorry state of 17th century surgery to your readers, it completely robs the scene of any urgency. the third chapter has a lot of exposition about the supposed big bad, some of which becomes relevant later, but trying to get through it is utterly excruciating! and then this info-dumping mostly goes away, but i have to wonder what the purpose is. this book is only about 250 pages, how much of it is needless padding???
2. the inconsistent povs
- 90% of this book is 1st person from gabriel himself. the other 10% is told in third person from coroner theophilus davey and, in one very special instance, a brief interlude from gabriel's sister, celia. conceptually i have no problem with the switching povs, but they're executed so poorly, i cannot believe that clare was an established author at this point! there's the problem that it's inconsistent--i truly cannot be bothered to go back and check, but i'm confident that there are at most 4 cases of theo's pov and there is literally only one case of celia's pov*. the vast majority of the book is told directly from gabe, with the exception of those early chapters and the celia interlude because in both cases the reader needs information that only those characters are privy to. this wouldn't be as much of a problem if these switches were. fucking differentiated at all! if they were short chapters of their own! instead the pov falls out from under your feet and switches mid-chapter then goes back to gabe. it's so jarring even without the additional offence that all the characters sound the same.
- theo isn't even as important of a character as these brief pov switches would lead you to believe. celia is a much more important character.
*not counting toward the end where celia Recounts Her Story which is, again, a jarring shift in tone
3. lazy descriptions and lack thereof
- clare's descriptions really seesaw between borderline too much (extravagant descriptions of celia's gowns and one later on of her room) and hardly there at all. take, for example this description of jeromy & celia's house in chapter 4:
"I rode into the stable yard behind the flamboyantly impressive house where my brother-in-law had installed his wife. I can't say I liked Ferrars; it was built of brash red brick, with turrets on the three towers that rose up at either end and in the middle of the long central wing, and whoever had built it hadn't missed one opportunity to elaborate and over-decorate."
- there is no further description of this "flamboyantly impressive house" which, because it is under-described, comes off sounding rather normal to me. i am not an architect, but i do have the wikipedia pages on tudor, elizabethan, and jacobean architecture open right now. it seems like ferrars may have an e-shaped layout which is period appropriate, but we're just supposed to fill in the rest. for example, there are no windows mentioned, which would be a wonderful way of speaking to the house's flamboyance. a house with more windows than wall would serve the dual purpose of showing off the handsome interiors to passersby, and demonstrate jeromy's wealth because windows provide less insulation from the cold. if you house is huge and badly-insulated, you likely also have money to spend on heating it. are any of these hypothetical windows stained glass? are they mullioned for decorative purposes? leaded with diamond panes? and that's just the windows. are the smooth lines marred by flourishes (i cannot find the name for what i'm thinking of) is there any strapwork on the facade, another ornamentation that would also reference growing anglo-dutch cross-cultural relations of the time? how can you expect your readers to hold a picture in their heads when all you've given them is a blank page?
4. poor writing overall
- this one frustrates me because there are a few instances where alys clare shows that she can write, specifically that she can turn a good simile (celia picks at her food "making less progress than a sickly mouse", a witness is described as having a "voice like a hinge needing oil"), but the majority of the prose is uninspired and rote. characters never say anything, they always murmur it (according to my kindle, the word 'murmur' and variations thereof appear 22 times), or, if they do say something, they say it softly (31 times).
- in chapter 3, gabriel says of his maid "and I knew she hated to be seen by company when she was sweaty, flushed and dishevelled." ("i knew" is also a big thing with gabriel, but it's harder to quantify in numbers). now, aside from the fact that clare uses 3 adjectives where she only needed one, this is such a boring and bloodless sentence. here's a five-second rewrite: "she hated being seen in a state of disarry." you could go into more depth about the potential class undercurrent--a servant not wanting to be seen as sloppy by her employer's visitors--or mention something about her pride in her appearance, her work, or both. instead clare does nothing with this.
- there are also instances where characters speak like no human person ever has, take this example from chapter 4: "It's at Withybere, which as you undoubtedly know is this side of Plymouth, and I'm between the village and Warleigh Point." both theo (the speaker) and gabriel (the 'you') are devonshire natives, and this geography would be unremarkable to them. but because clare needs all her readers to have the vaguest sense of geography, she inserts this, then undermines it with the phrase "as you undoubtedly know". if he UNDOUBTEDLY KNOWS then WHY are you telling him????
5. convoluted story
- the silk industry really plays a minimal part in the story, despite what the copy leads you to believe. there are so many twists and contrivances that you really are not losing anything by not actively trying to solve the mystery yourself, and how could you?
- the story ends up going places truly no one would be able to predict. the plot and tone change constantly. it's difficult to follow because so many plot threads are raised and then forgotten. after her husband is murdered, celia is worried that she will be next. there's the (largely unfounded) fear that jeromy's associates will accuse her of murder, take her to court for killing her superior, and have her BURNED AT THE STAKE (needless to say, this does not happen). there's the brief and easily solved matter of jeromy's apparent suicide meaning he can't be buried in consecrated ground. there's the question of the missing voulge, which could have simply been jeromy's regular every-day sword. there's the plot at the beginning about the "gifts" being left on gabriel's doorstep. what about black carlotta? what about the jesuits? what about the poltical shift from one monarch to another?
- there's a "post-script" at the end that's the length of a regular chapter and is an unbearably dull "here's what they're up to now" epilogue which provides nothing new to the world and drags out the already putrid corpse of this story.
6. gabriel's career
- perhaps this changes in later books (again, i cannot be bothered to find out) but aside from the preliminary set-up of gabriel trying to adjust to life as a country doctor, and the few scenes where he sees patients, the fact that he's a doctor doesn't have much bearing on the plot or really help him solve the murders. he realizes that a person could not have committed suicide because of the length and angle of the blade used, which i don't think could really be entirely chalked up to anatomical knowledge, and knows what a lazaretto is which ends up being a key plot point in denouement. that's basically it. aside from those two cases, he could have had virtually any other career and the bulk of the text would not have changed. you would think that his medical knowledge would come into play at some point and yet it never does. compare this to ariana franklin's mistress of the art of death series, which features a proto-forensic scientist as the main character. in that series, adelia's medical knowledge is integral not only to solving the murders, but also advancing the plot. the entire series is structured around what her medical training from 12th century salerno and how characters in england would react to a woman of that knowledge. you cannot sidestep her career without having to entirely rewrite the series.
7. idiotic characters
- everyone in this book is absolute rocks-for-brains-born-yesterday-googoo-gaga-dumbass-idiot. absolutely everyone. gabe has a moment where he's confused why his sister would be scared for her life after her husband was murdered. there are several moments where a conclusion is obvious to even the least engaged reader, but gabriel is completely obtuse to them. i didn't highlight any other examples but believe me, they were there.
this one isn't a problem i just want to point out that not one but two people are killed/tortured by having large slabs of granite shoved into their mouths which i feel should get some sort of award for one of the grisliest if not ridiculous deaths i've read, and i read whatever the ever-loving FUCK was going on with murder in the crooked house
anyway, this was recommended by my library for fans of ariana franklin and now i have trust issues. if for some reason you do want to read this, please heed the cws. the final chapters have particularly graphic descriptions of domestic abuse and attempted marital rape.
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated