Reviews tagging 'Murder'

The Strange Case of the Alchemist's Daughter by Theodora Goss

16 reviews

danaburrreads's review against another edition

adventurous dark funny mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death and Murder

Moderate: Child abuse and Misogyny

navayiota's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark informative inspiring mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I'm upset with myself for not starting it earlier. What a stunning fantasy period piece, also a retelling of three separate classics. I rarely read blurbs so I was flabbergasted when Sherlock Holmes entered the picture. How smart, and masterfully done. It took me a while to adjust to the writing style as it was difficult to understand what was going on by ear, but after I caught on, I was utterly charmed. I have a few nitpicks, like the fact that in real life, corsetry was a way for women to take back an aspect of their lives and not something they rebelled against. It turns out that the myth was perpetuated by men who found it ridiculous to undermine the women (which worked, since so many people believe that it was constricting. Tight lacing was extremely rare and frowned upon, so there was no reason for Beatrice to be so emphatically against it) 
Also, I found the narrator slightly irritating in the way she voiced Beatrice, sometimes pushing her accent too far to the point where it was a bit ridiculous. Other than that, I enjoyed the narration.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abandonment, Death of parent, Grief, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Murder, Child abuse, Death, Suicidal thoughts, and Toxic relationship

Moderate: Fire/Fire injury, Medical content, and Infidelity

geekmom's review against another edition

adventurous funny lighthearted mysterious slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

3.25

This was a fun idea with lots of potential, but I ended up struggling with it. The characters needed more fleshing out - perhaps there were too many of them. They felt flat and one dimensional. The character of Diana in particular needed a lot more work - she’s supposedly 14 but acts like she’s about seven, and also talks like a wisecracking sidekick from an American animated children’s movie. She really didn’t work for me.

Speaking of language…after struggling recently with Olivia Atwater’s delightful book ideas that were so let down by getting the “Regency” language badly wrong, I am so disappointed to find another writer who has clearly taken the time to carefully research the setting and time within which her novel is set but has not addressed the rather important problem of having her characters talk like people from that place and time. So in this book I’m reading about English people (mainly Londoners) in the 19th century— they should not be speaking a weird mixture of modern American English and of the way Americans might imagine English people spoke in the past. I tried hard to get past this issue but, seriously, as just one example— in London in the late 1800s the word “pants” did not mean what it means to a 21st century American reader. And we have plenty of written sources to tell us how Sherlock Holmes spoke - I’m not able to check right now but I’m going to hazard a guess that he rarely if ever used the word “gotten”…  How hard would it have been to ask someone familiar with English dialects and the particular way English would have been spoken by people from various social classes at that time to review the manuscript and help fix this? This book would have been great if Goss and her editors could have made the language work; instead I was constantly being jolted out of the world of the book by misplaced and misused words, and I had to work to finish it. I wonder what the editors and publishers were thinking. I’m forced to conclude that they don’t expect their readers to be familiar enough with the source material and setting that inspired this novel to notice or care about this issue, which is a really depressing conclusion given that one would hope this book would motivate readers to go out and read Holmes and the wonderful early speculative fiction that inspired Goss to write this book.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Torture, Violence, and Animal cruelty

Moderate: Slavery and Schizophrenia/Psychosis

gabi_tron's review against another edition

adventurous dark lighthearted mysterious fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Death of parent, Child abuse, Animal cruelty, and Violence

thepastelnerd's review against another edition

Too dark for my taste, but the writing is very good.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Violence, Death of parent, Murder, and Blood

Moderate: Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Sexual content

anni_swanilda's review against another edition

adventurous dark funny hopeful mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Injury/Injury detail, Violence, Death of parent, Gore, Blood, Body horror, and Murder

Moderate: Fire/Fire injury, Kidnapping, Misogyny, and Confinement

Minor: Medical content, Animal cruelty, and Forced institutionalization

blacksphinx's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious medium-paced

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

2.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Animal death, Death of parent, Grief, and Murder

Minor: Kidnapping, Self harm, and Suicidal thoughts

clarabooksit's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious slow-paced

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

2.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Murder, Violence, Death, Animal cruelty, Sexism, Misogyny, Toxic relationship, Injury/Injury detail, Grief, Fire/Fire injury, Death of parent, Confinement, and Child abuse

Minor: Infertility

madscientistcat's review against another edition

adventurous lighthearted mysterious slow-paced

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

2.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Violence, and Death

Moderate: Death of parent and Murder

beca_reads's review against another edition

adventurous funny hopeful mysterious medium-paced

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

3.75

Overall I did enjoy this book, it took me a while to get into the story, but it turned out to be a pleasant read. We follow Mary who has just lost both of her parents and is left with very little money. A series of murders happen in London which may have a link to the death of her father and a society which he was apart of . She ends up help Sherlock to solve the mystery, and along the way she meets different girls that had fathers that experimented on them. This book left me wanting more, and I hope to get to the second book soon.  This book is best described as historical urban fantasy, as there are fantastical elements to the book, this would be perfect for those that enjoy Neil Gaiman's work, and maybe Erin Morgenstern. Goss also interweaves a collection of classics including Frankenstein into this book, and the history of Mary Shelley.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abandonment, Forced institutionalization, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Murder, Death of parent, Blood, Child death, Death, Fire/Fire injury, Mental illness, and Violence