3.5 stars. This book took me forever to get into; I had to force myself to pick it up until over halfway through. It was a decent read but the ending was thoroughly unsatisfying after all the protagonist went through.

London 1850, Iris Whittle jobbar med att måla porslinsdockor, men drömmer om att bli konstnär. Hon träffar Louis Frost, en medlem av prerafaeliterna, och går med på att stå modell för honom mot att han lär henne att måla.

Samtidigt följer vi Silas Reed, uppstoppare av djur, kuriosasamlare och allmänt weirdo. Världsutställningen håller på att byggas, och Iris och Silas möts flyktigt, vilket leder till en besatthet hos honom som bara blir mer och mer sjuk.

Stämningen i den här boken liknar den i The Mermaid and Mrs. Hancock - det bygger upp till en urladdning som man vet kommer att bli en katastrof.

Jag gillar när man blandar fakta och fiktion, som att några konstnärer från det historiska Pre Raphaelite Brotherhood är med (men inte huvudkaraktären). Då boken är väldigt välskriven och dessutom med en stark kvinnlig huvudkaraktär får den en femma av mig!

3.5 stars

Not what I expected.
A rather dull and cliched account of Victorian London,

Spoiler

I rolled my eyes when the beautiful working class redhead gets adopted as a Pre-Raphaelite stunner.
And then we get the gratuitously cruel taxidermist, has to be a creepy weirdo with a hobby like that, right?
It was pretty obvious it was going to end up borrowing heavily from Fowles' 'The Collector', by which point I was completely repulsed by it.

Poor plot and characterisation. Disappointing.

The perfect combination of beauty and macabre is brought to you in The Doll Factory. The story centres around Iris, who wants to escape the confines of her dull job in a Doll Shop, her twin sister who is very clingy, jealous and bitter, and society's expectations of her and women as a whole. Iris wants to paint, and she is offered a job as a model for a painter in exchange for a wage and painting lessons.

However Silas, the creepiest taxidermist on the planet, is obsessed with her and he stops at nothing to entrap her. Literally. Be warned, there is a also a heavy dose of animal abuse in this book.

I enjoyed this book. I was disgusted and mystified in equal measure. The writing is remarkable at dragging you feet first into Victorian London with all the sights, colours, smells and textures. Some of them you really didn't want to experience!

Only downside is it ended far too abrubtly for me. I could have done with another 20 pages to feel at peace with it all.

Worth a read if you like your historical fiction gritty and gothic.

Well that was deeply deliciously dark and disturbing. I loved it! Full review to come.

I won this book in a giveaway and was super excited to read it. I love a mystery, thriller, suspense story. Unfortunately, the characters and storyline felt so weird to me that I found myself not enjoying it. It never drew me in like I thought it would. I made it 50% of the way through and then actually stopped reading for a couple weeks because I was avoiding the book. In the end, it just wasn't for me so I decided to quit it halfway through. I'm glad others enjoyed it.