Reviews

The Blood by E.S. Thomson

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brubru's review

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dark informative mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.25

richmondo's review

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adventurous challenging dark mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.25

This series just keeps getting better with each new installment. Once again re affirming that Victorian London is not an age or place I would have liked to experience first hand. With its many twists it kept me glued to the pages, first needing to find the answer and second, only narrowly, to watch the development of Jem and Will's relationship. Squeamish? A warning!

gregoreads's review

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5.0

I damn near had a heart attack finishing this book! My heart is genuinely pounding. That ending!!! Ahh. I have Surgeon’s Hall but I don’t want to start it right away so the wait for book five won’t seem as long. Anyway I love these books and I’m recommending them to everyone I pass by on the street lol. They’ve got crime, queer characters, beautiful friendships, mysteries, a very cool historical setting, everything.

jmatkinson1's review

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4.0

Settled into work as an apothecary in the East End of London, Jem Flockhart hides his secret and tries to help those in need. When a note comes from an old acquaintance asking Jem to hurry to the hospital ship the Golden Fleece Jem is worried, and because the note was delayed he is concerned as to what he will fine. In fact Jem arrived just in time to see Dr Aberlour driven to madness and take his own life. The hospital ship is run by a group of proud yet prejudiced doctors who also have an unhealthy relationship with Siren House, a home for repenting prostitutes. As Jem investigated the death of Dr Aberlour, other bodies appear and a secret needs to be revealed.

I do quite like the premise of Jem as a character, the daughter of a medical man who cannot pursue her vocation in Victorian London because of her sex so she disguises it. I also like the way that Will loves Jem but Jem feels Will is a brother to her as she mourns the loss of Eliza. In this book there was a nice subplot about racism which amped up the theme of prejudice. There is no doubt that Thomson is developing as a writer, the stories have always been well plotted and this is no exception, twisty and complex, but the use of metaphors is very strong here and the research into both medicine and historical time and place is exceptional.

krilves's review

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challenging dark emotional inspiring tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

Historical crime novel that is also queer?? Sign me up! Picked this up in oxfam after I finished reading The Way of All Flesh because it had a quote on the back from Kirsty Logan that included the words “unapologetically queer”.

I didn’t know this was the 3rd in a series but it works as a standalone, I think - I’m just now deeply curious about some of the past events hinted to and will probably pick up the rest of the books in the series eventually.

This is also a Victorian era historical crime novel, with medical men at the centre - I say “men” but the main character Jem (an apothecary) is a woman in man’s guise. She does have ruminations about gender as she sees herself as a man through life long conditioning but also a woman due to her physicality and there’s a lot of acting to blend in - she could easily be interpreted as a trans man or at least a genderqueer person.

Set in London. It really really does not let you forget how foul and filthy the city and the river was at the time. I live in modern London and I struggle with the smell of the Thames on the worst of days, I would not have lasted long in the 1800s…

I liked the plot (mysterious murders leading to a secret society and a fanatic experimenting doctor obsessed with recreating life - the chilling thing is the doctor is *right* and that by shocking people with electricity they can sometimes be brought back - that’s what defibrillators are today - but at the time he is considered mad. Well he did also kill people in his experiments, so there’s that…) and I loved the characters - particularly Jem and Will, and I now need to know everything about how they came to be friends and live together.

I’m realising that when it comes to crime I do not want protagonists who are cops or even amateur sleuths, I want protags who have a profession they’re passionate about who happen to stumble into something they need to solve. I also don’t care for modern settings because for me reading fiction is largely about escapism (it’s why I read so much SFF and romance) and modern crime/thrillers are like, the stuff you read about in the news. There’s no remove or distance. So the historical setting works really well for me because it has the distance of time but because it’s fiction there’s also an element of fantasy there. Both this and The Way of All Flesh are very meticulously researched as best I can tell, and it works to ground rye stories in a tangible, but removed, setting. And finally…I want it to be queer, lol. I’m tired of heterosexual nonsense and this was such a nice change, it essentially eliminated the one quibble I’d had with The Way of All Flesh.