I really enjoyed this book, it wasn’t what i expected but the tale told in the time of victorian London during the great exhibition was engaging and evocative. I loved and hated certain characters, Albie was my favourite he was funny and sad, only having one tooth which he cherished and him saving for his precious ivories was wonderful, it showed even when your on the streets we all want to look good and feel good. Iris is the main character that we follow, through her time working with mrs salter in the shop where iris paints the dolls faces while her twin sews the clothes. Iris has ambitions to paint and when she meets Louis her luck changes for good and bad. Silas stuffs animals and is a leering, obsessive character who brings menace to the story but in a way you feel sadness for him also with the hand he’s been dealt and what lead to his way of thinking. This was a book that took me on many twists and turns and i can’t wait to read the next book by this author.

Un libro che non parte mai ed è tutto così piatto! Salvo poi spiccare il volo nelle ultime 30 pagine in modo velocissimo ed inverosimile. Come se l'autrice avesse fretta di finirlo. Peccato perché dalle recensioni lette su Instagram avevo grandi aspettative! Di bello ha solo la copertina...

Art, freedom and obsession collide in Elizabeth MacNeal’s The Doll Factory. This debut novel marries historical fiction with elements of the psychological thriller to create a proper page-turner. I practically devoured this book on a seven-hour train journey (from Kalgoorlie to Perth) last weekend and have been thinking about it ever since.

It’s set in London during the Great Exhibition and the era of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, a loose association of English painters who rebelled against the art standards of the day, and focuses on a young woman called Iris Whittle who is drawn into their circle, first as an artist’s model, but then as a burgeoning painter in her own right.

Along the way, she attracts the unwanted attention of a taxidermist, Silas Reed, who is constantly in pursuit of the weird and wonderful. Silas becomes obsessed with Iris and her deformity — a collarbone that is twisted out of shape so that she has a slight stoop to her left side — and makes plans to befriend her, whether she likes it or not.

What results is a fast-paced story in which Iris, oblivious to Silas’s increasingly dangerous obsession with her, falls prey to his dark, manipulative ways…

To read the rest of my review, please visit my blog.

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.