Tag: Reviews

#BookReview The Doll Factory by Elizabeth Macneal @picadorbooks

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The Doll FactoryAbout the Book

London. 1850. The Great Exhibition is being erected in Hyde Park and among the crowd watching the spectacle two people meet. For Iris, an aspiring artist, it is the encounter of a moment – forgotten seconds later, but for Silas, a collector entranced by the strange and beautiful, that meeting marks a new beginning.

When Iris is asked to model for pre-Raphaelite artist Louis Frost, she agrees on the condition that he will also teach her to paint. Suddenly her world begins to expand, to become a place of art and love.

But Silas has only thought of one thing since their meeting, and his obsession is darkening . . .

Format: Hardcover (336 pages)   Publisher: Picador
Publication date: 2nd May 2019 Genre: Historical Fiction

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My Review

The Doll Factory, the author’s debut novel, is set in Victorian London and provides a vivid picture of life in the period.  Whilst those in the higher echelons of society throng the glittering halls of the Great Exhibition or the Royal Academy, the poor wander ‘narrow and fetid’ passages, dark alleys with ‘green slime on their walls’ and inhabit the crowded rookeries where poverty-stricken young men and women support themselves through petty crime or prostitution. Those lucky enough to find employment, like Iris and her sister Rose, work long hours in thrall to the whims of their employers.

It’s no wonder Iris longs to escape her current occupation painting the faces of dolls and fulfil her artistic potential. When the opportunity comes it seems to her ‘as if her life was charcoal before, and now it takes on the vividness of oil paint’.  However, Iris’s new found freedom comes with consequences and also a degree of trepidation. ‘Her life was a cell before but now the freedom terrifies her. There are times when she longs for the enclosed familiarity of her previous life, because this expansive liberty seems like it will engulf her.’  As it turns out, Iris will soon realise just how precious liberty is.

The Doll Factory is a story of obsession and desire in various forms. Artist Louis Frost, and the other members of the self-styled Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, have a desire to challenge current artistic conventions. Street urchin Albie wishes to free his sister from a life of prostitution, one in which, obscenely, dying girls are the most treasured by clients. Albie also has rather specific ambitions of his own.  Meanwhile Silas, the owner of a shop filled with curiosities of a rather gruesome nature, harbours an obsession of a more sinister nature. The more the reader learns about his past the more menacing and disturbing his actions become.

There are some melodramatic scenes as events move towards their climax with the book’s ending inviting the reader to reach their own conclusion about the fate of the main characters. Part mystery, part love story, The Doll Factory positively oozes period atmosphere and will appeal to readers who like a good helping of the Gothic in their historical fiction… or those who desire to make the aquaintance of a wombat called Guinevere.

In three words: Atmospheric, chilling, dark

Try something similar: Crimson & Bone by Marina Fiorato

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Elizabeth MacnealAbout the Author

Elizabeth Macneal was born in Edinburgh and now lives in East London. She is a writer and potter and works from a small studio at the bottom of her garden. She read English Literature at Oxford University, before working in the City for several years. In 2017, she completed the Creative Writing MA at UEA in 2017 where she was awarded the Malcolm Bradbury scholarship. The Doll Factory, Elizabeth’s debut novel, won the Caledonia Noel Award 2018. (Photo/bio: Goodreads)

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#BookReview A Three Dog Problem by S. J. Bennett @ZaffreBooks

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A Three Dog ProblemAbout the Book

In the wake of a referendum which has divided the nation, the last thing the Queen needs is any more problems to worry about. But when an oil painting of the Royal Yacht Britannia – first given to the Queen in the 1960s – shows up unexpectedly in a Royal Navy exhibition, she begins to realise that something is up.

When a body is found in the Palace swimming pool, she finds herself once again in the middle of an investigation which has more twists and turns than she could ever have suspected. With her trusted secretary Rozie by her side, the Queen is determined to solve the case. But will she be able to do it before the murderer strikes again?

Format: Hardcover (388 pages)              Publisher: Zaffre
Publication date: 11th November 2021 Genre: Crime, Mystery

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My Review

A Three Dog Problem proved to be the perfect contrast to the run of rather serious books I’ve read lately. It’s a delightful, charming mystery in which Her Majesty proves herself to be just as astute and no-nonsense as we always imagined. As one of her staff observes, ‘She was a hell of a lot sharper than she looked. Mistakes were picked up on. Dry comments were made. Eyes were rolled.’

Ex-soldier Rozie, the Queen’s Assistant Private Secretary, is a great character and a force to be reckoned with. As she reminds herself, when the enquiries she has set in train take an unexpectedly risky turn, ‘her regimental specialism had been “find, strike, destroy, suppress”‘.

I loved the humorous elements in the book such as Prince Philip’s petname for his wife being Cabbage, the idea of the Queen googling herself on her iPad to find out where she was on a particular date, and that she spent some of her time at Balmoral binge-watching Murder She Wrote.

I also enjoyed the ‘behind the scenes’ look at life in a royal palace, an increasingly dilapidated one as it turns out in the case of Buckingham Palace. And, as Rozie observes, at night its character changes. ‘The majority of staff went home, the flood of tradesmen, craftsmen and daily visitors slowed to a trickle, and the place was reclaimed by those who lived there or habitually worked late. The buildings stopped trying to impress and their occupants got on with the task of working as efficiently as they could in a rabbit warren of corridors that ceased to make sense two hundred years ago.’

External events such as the fallout from the Brexit referendum and the US Presidential election provide a subtle backdrop to the main storyline. The Queen muses about women who have achieved things or may do so in the future, such as Hilary Clinton, whilst underplaying her own role in world affairs. And there is a moving scene in which the Queen attends the annual Remembrance Day ceremony at the Cenotaph; it’s especially poignant as ill-health meant she was unable to attend the ceremony for only the seventh time in her long reign this year.

And, of course, at the heart of the book is an ingenious mystery involving amongst other things an unexplained death, poison pen letters, Renaissance art, and some murky goings-on in the bowels of Buckingham Palace.  Definitely a three dog problem.

I know many readers have fallen in love with this series, which commenced with The Windsor Knot in 2020, and I can now understand why. The good news is the author promises there’s another book on the way next year.

I received an a review copy courtesy of Zaffre and Readers First.

In three words: Engaging, witty, lively

Try something similar: The Vanishing Bride by Bella Ellis

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S J BennettAbout the Author

S. J. Bennett wrote several award-winning books for teenagers before turning to adult crime novels. She lives in London and has been a royal watcher for years, but is keen to stress that these are works of fiction: the Queen, to the best of her knowledge, does not secretly solve crimes. (Photo: Goodreads author page)

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