wunkymatts 's review for:

Bellman & Black by Diane Setterfield

5.0

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This book is so wonderfully written. The first part feels like a whistle stop biography of a young man in the countryside but it's never dull. Setterfield's writing is dreamy but very evocative. It's so easy to picticture what she is describing. Then things started happening and it became more plot driven but I was still just happy to be carried along. The moments when William seems to be descending into a kind of madness are so wonderfully done and the described mania seemed to drag me down as well. I loved how the book was so at one with its setting I never needed to be told when it was, I just knew. And all the gorgeous little details of Victorian mourning culture were such a treat! I now know a lot more about the history of cremation, which can only be a good thing.