Genre : Gothic Mystery, Historical Fiction
Book Cover : 2 **
Rating : 3.5 ***
After hearing many many recommendations for ‘Things in jars’ from all over Booktube, I finally decided to give this book a try as it is historical fiction, which is certainly my kind of thing, and is set in London with a feisty female detective who has a fascinating mystery to solve. Things in Jars put me in mind of anatomy classes in college and I was wondering whether it would turn out to be those truly gruesome ‘Frankesteiny’ books with laboratories and mad scientists and such. Thankfully, that was not quite the direction this author decided to take. The book cover is completely forgettable and dull. Would not pick this book up just by looking at the cover for sure.
The writing style of the author is ‘present continuous’, which I find jarring at the best of times and so found myself floundering for the first few pages of the book. Also, the beginning of the book seemed to be a bit haphazard and jerky. I decided to drop it for a while and come back the next day, which turned out to be an ace decision since I was fresher and was more amiable towards the ‘present continuous’ thing and I started appreciating the main protagonist and female detective, Bridie, for what she was.
Bridie is a female detective and seems to have this extremely checkered past with so many interesting characters floating around it that one wishes for a book just about them. Bridie is asked to find a missing child – a child about whose existence nobody in the household is privy to apart from the father, the doctor, the doctor’s daughter and the nurse. It is explained that the child is not ‘natural’ and thus was hidden away for her own well-being. One begins to question it this over-simplified explanation early on as the author starts revealing tantalizing tit-bits about the little girl and about Bridie in alternating chapters creating a suitably Gothic atmosphere.
The story is dark but not unnecessarily gruesome or unpalatable. The gothic element is pretty strong throughout the book and fans of the genre will certainly be deeply satisfied. The mystery of the little girl’s disappearance takes second place to her history, which is fascinating. One finds oneself rooting for the little girl and for Bridie at the same time. Also, the threads that connect all over the book was another smart hook for this reader at least. It is in all an extremely satisfying mystery novel for the London, historical crime aficionado. Throw in a bit of understated fantasy and lore and things get even more delicious and foreboding.
The only thing that truly irked me was the love story part of the book. One realizes that this is an old-world love story and other such things but it becomes absolutely frustrating that an intelligent, mature woman would fall for – well, the kind of man she falls for, when there is this wonderful guy throwing himself at her feet all the time. If there is a sequence to this book, I dearly want the nice guy to find himself someone else and not go about mooning for Bridie only to have her accept him out of sheer pity. Others might enjoy this part, but I was just thoroughly disgruntled by it all.
Overall, this was a fun read and I would certainly like to look at other titles by the author to read and recommend.
Wanton Ruminating 