A deep and riveting psychological thriller inspired by true events of the Victorian era, The Medea Complex explores the nature of the human psyche: what possesses us, what drives us, and how love, passion, and hope for the future can drive us to insanity.
1885. Anne Stanbury wakes up in a strange bed, having been kidnapped from her home. As the panic settles in, she realizes she has been committed to a lunatic asylum, deemed insane and therefore unfit to stand trial for an unspeakable crime. But all is not as it seems….
Edgar Stanbury, her husband as well as a grieving father, is torn between helping his confined wife recover her sanity and seeking revenge for his ruined life. But Anne’s future rests wholly in the hands of Dr. George Savage, chief medical officer of Bethlem Royal Hospital.
The Medea Complex is the darkly compelling story of a lunatic, a lie, and a shocking revelation that elucidates the difference between madness and evil….
Rachel Florence Roberts was born in Liverpool. She was inspired to write The Medea Complex after suffering with postnatal depression, following the birth of her son. The Medea Complex is inspired by true events that occurred towards the end of the 19th century, and is Rachel’s first novel.
1. I won't pretend I was at all pleased to receive several spam invites on a totally inappropriate group to buy this book, but my attitude changed when I actually read the last one saying the book was a free download. "Free" just does it for me!
The first thing I did was to skim through it and I did find some of it quite amusing, the bit about her urinating on herself and not knowing it was hysterical so I sent the link to a couple of friends and began to read it properly myself.
After a couple of hours, one friend reported back,
"It is bad. Very bad. I just haven't reached the hilariously bad parts yet. So far, it's just sucky bad."
***
2. Unfortunately there isn't the kind of imagination behind this book that translates an interesting idea into a really good story peopled with believable characters. The writing lets it down as well. Instead of flowing, it is so bad that it is funny. But bad writing means that your attention wanders, it isn't held by the unfolding story.
Still I will plough on and see if it improves.
***
3. I don't like giving up on books but sometimes life is too short. It just doesn't do it for me. It's not that it's that bad, it really isn't, it just doesn't hold my attention and the writing which is amateurish and in need of a stiff editor, not a non-critical friend, makes the story seem somewhat preposterous. The central character doesn't interest me at all, I just find her annoying.
To be fair, if the Everything BookLikes group hadn't been repeatedly spammed, I would never have picked up this book, I don't read in this genre at all. So, in one way, I'm not the intended audience and maybe some people would enjoy it far more than I did. In another way of course everyone is the intended audience if they are spammed. And this is the consequence. I was pulled in by the 'free hook' so I did download the book, I did read at least some of it and I didn't enjoy it. And I did decide to write a review.
You think I would have got trolled if I'd written a totally untrue gushing 5-star review? Honesty is not what was required, advertising copy in the form of a review was. It wasn't forthcoming not because I was spammed, but because the book didn't deserve it.
Targetted marketing to reach people who do read in the genre rather than spamming everyone might be a better option for promotion.
I've given up. I just can't get through this book at all.
When I was invited by the author to read and review her book I was intrigued by the subject matter and so researched the Medea Complex in psychology and mythology on the internet, so with my interest piqued, I started this novel....
Have you ever started a book and right from the first few pages been drawn into the story, felt sympathy or empathy for the characters and just couldn't put the book down? I have - but sadly not with this one. The idea behind this book is good: Anne, Lady Stanbury, wakes up to find herself in a strange place; we, the readers, know it is a "lunatic asylum", but Anne thinks she has been kidnapped for ransom. But why is she there? Does her family know where she is? Will she ever get out?
Each chapter, written in the present tense, is from the perspective of different characters - Anne's husband Edgar Stanbury, an out and out money-grubbing prig; her father Lord Darnsbridge...a patron of the asylum; Dr Savage, head honcho at the asylum; Anne herself of course, and various other sundry people. The reason for Anne's incarceration quickly becomes obvious to us with our modern day knowledge, but in the 1880s, when all sorts of strange notions for certain conditions were put forward, the future looks bleak for Anne. The asylum is staffed by Dr Savage who wants to go to any lengths to cure her, Fat Ruth, the stereotypical hateful nurse and Agnus the token kindly nurse. Wranglings regarding inheritance go on in Anne's absence with Edgar her husband, one minute declaring his undying love for her and in the next breath referring to her as a slut. Poor Anne.
There is little in the way of descriptive narrative, the characters are one dimensional, and I found the use of modern day idioms such as "....None. Zip. Nada" in a Victorian setting quite odd, as was the "humour" which did not work for me; the dialogue of "t'common people" is clumsy and quite unnecessary. Unfortunately the whole thing is so poorly written from a grammatical point of view, with for example, the incorrect use of the word "whom" every single time, when "who" is correct; "lays" rather than "lies"; "was stood" instead of "standing" etc, etc. Changes of tense within the same sentence is never good. Punctuation was often poor and there are so many typos, it's as though a copy edit or proof read have never been done. I'm afraid, for me, all this spoiled what might have otherwise been quite a good read and I really struggled to get through it.
The above review is the one I posted on Amazon after which I was accused of slander and threatened with legal action if I didn't withdraw it! I haven't and I won't.
This was a very good story. Very suspenseful. However it had so many technical errors that I could hardly finish the book. It was very distracting.
For example, in one passage she mentions the cook as "defending her fridge". defending her fridge? In 1886? Are you aware that the home refrigerator was not invented until 1913? In another place the doctor mentions his inadequateness. Really? Don't you mean inadequacy? I don't think a man with the education of a Victorian era doctor would make such a grammatical error. And speaking of errors, it is riddled with punctuation errors, especially when it comes to possessive vs plural. And there are a lot of sentences with words transposed or stuck in that don't make any sense. I suspect that she changed the wording of a sentence but didn't take out all of the old verbiage. Oh, and the language used my the storytellers did not always fit the Victorian era. There were idioms and words used that are very much of this century, not late late Victorian. Like "coping mechanism". Since, in 1886, Freud was just setting up his practice, I very much doubt that the phrase would have been in common usage as it is now. The psychologist who first identified coping mechanisms was writing between 1925 and 1945.
That said, this is still a good story. I hope you keep writing. My advice though, is to GET AN EDITOR! Find someone with good grammar skills and have them edit it for you. Not only is it distracting to the reader but it makes you look uneducated, and I don't think you are. A research assistant might not be a bad idea, either.
Despite the spam, This is actually something I might read (I have a bit of a thing for Bedlam Hospital, and well written Victoriana)
Or not. I popped up the look inside, hit the "surprise me" button. In a paragraph that shifts tense from present perfect to past perfect and back twice, I am told that the witnesses "strongly collaborated" someones character.
Considering how good I can the English most days, it's bad if simple grammar and completely wrong word choice are smacking me in the face right on the very first page I read. I decided not to bother, free or not.
I read the excerpt on Goodreads. I don't know if it got better because the writing put me off. The use of modern slang like 'fix the floor' and 'have you taken any drugs' together with Victorian speech specifically. Not for me.
The Medea Complex is one of those stories. The ones you drag yourself along to the cinema to see after reconsidering because there was nothing else on, or read because you happened to have it and then discover how close you came to missing out on a truly unexpected wonder.
R.F. Roberts has hit the ground running with her debut novel. A veritable whirlwind of bewilderment, fear, edginess and the blackest of gallows humour. Roberts conveys the feelings, fears and amusement of her characters, the confusion, jealousy, love and ambition they feel and are driven by, expertly. Roberts gives the reader an uneasy feeling right from the first page and maintains that level of edginess and suspense throughout. For a first-time author, Roberts is remarkably self-assured in her use of first-person narrative. Many debut authors resort to this narrative style for the sake of simplicity, Roberts merely brandishes it as a mechanisms with which to carry her readers along and amplify the eagerness of the reader to unfold the motives and consequences of her characters and their actions. Simply brilliant skill, and one that normally needs a book or two under the writer’s belt to use with this kind of confidence and effect. Roberts has clearly done her research and despite historical fiction not really being my thing, I found this book utterly compelling and strangely contemporary in its quaintness. For me this book fulfilled the promise that recent psychological thriller Before I go To Sleep by S.J. Watson failed to deliver. A truly creative and skilled debut novel.
I struggled with giving this 2 stars. . It was interesting enough for me to finish it through (but maybe that was because I wasted .99 on it and didn't have the heart to lose out on a dollar)..
I felt like the description of the book was extremely enticing - then I started the novel and it went downhill from there. The book itself was a disappointment, the writing style was very "diary"-esque yet I never felt anything for the characters and was never engrossed with the main character, Anne. So the writing style fell completely flat and I found it to be annoying after a while.
From the description, I had expected to learn a few historical facts with a great suspenseful plot. That was not the case. I felt the plot to be fairly predictable and was constantly checking to see how many pages were left.
All in all, disappointed but I managed to finish it to the end - that has to count for 2 stars worth.
This could have been a great story with insights into the care of the insane and the Victorian view of women. Instead, the dialogue was flat and the characters unconvincing. I couldn't believe how many people gave it five stars. It comes close to being the most poorly written book I've ever read.
The beginning of this book took me by surprise, for a horrible moment I thought this was going to be a poorly researched voyage into the late nineteenth century; I was wrong, this book was a mixture of authentic details of life in the changing world of lunatic asylums along with a gripping mystery about what really happened on the fateful day when Lady Anne Stanbury killed her son. So why my initial hesitation? The language used was more modern than would usually be found in historical novels which I initially found quite off-putting. Anne uses colourful language, but she was incarcerated for being insane so this is entirely fitting with the illness and later on as she makes steps towards recovery the use of profanities declines.
The story is told from multiple viewpoints including Dr George Savage’s daily notes on his wealthy patient. Dr Savage is a leading psychiatrist at Bethlem Royal Hospital where he alone can be the one to free Anne from the hospital. Dr Savage is walking a thin line, as in his eagerness to see Anne become well enough to leave the hospital he starts counselling her husband Edgar who is using alcohol as a crutch. Edgar is struggling with opposing emotions about his wife and in need of all the help he can get.
For the reader who enjoys their historical mysteries to be well-plotted with a firm grip on the newest ideas of the times this is well worth a read. I confess that I had some quibbles about the language used and minor historical facts, but those at the crux of this book were well researched providing an enjoyable read on a subject rarely covered.
I received a free copy of this book from the author in return for this honest review.
For a fuller review of the historical content of this book please visit Cleopatra Loves Books
This dark and compelling tale is set in the late 19th century, a period when mental health was largely misunderstood and the mere shadow of doubt could condemn someone to a lifetime of misery in a lunatic asylum. In this historical setting, Lady Anne Stanbury finds herself interned in a mental hospital. She stands accused of killing her infant son but has been deemed unfit to stand trial by reason of insanity. Her heartbroken husband is torn by conflicting emotions as he struggles to deal with the horrific deed she has apparently committed. This is the stark premise from which the story (powerfully narrated from different points of view) unfolds with a series of twists and turns.
This book is a 'tour de force' in the exploration of the human psyche and in its ability to transport the reader, with such authenticity and in-depth knowledge of subject matter that one has to wonder at the amount of research that must have gone into its creation. There are no holes in the writing and the author's ability to bring the situations and scenes to life is quite remarkable. Her characters are drawn clearly and cleverly, and there are many surprises, and Ms Roberts holds the reader captivated by the need to know what happens next. Surely the sign of a gifted writer. From the very first page, the reader is drawn into the mind and soul of the heroine and feeling all the beautifully nuanced emotions she experiences.
This powerful, chilling narrative contains some disturbing subject matter, but this is handled with such measured delicacy and compassion that one is willing to be swept along by the optimistic quality of the assured writing.
This book had so much potential, but was very poorly executed. I really liked the characters and the plot, but it was like a first draft, not a completed work. There are SO many typos, grammatical errors, and use of incorrect words that it made me crazy! The author refers to a character's voice raising on OCTANE. Really? And could someone please explain to this woman what an apostrophe is, and how to use it??? Anyway, loved the plot and idea of the story, just wish someone would have proof read and edited before I read it. This is one book that might be better as a movie.
I wish the story was more than just surface level, and that the meaning of the title had been incorporated in the story. So much potential, but just a disappointment.
I am not sure who to root for in the end, the two main characters: Anne and her husband Edgar had went through some serious problems when Anne murdered their son John. Poor Anne was sent to the Bethlehem Psychiatric Hospital while Edgar ponders his love and hate towards his lovely wife. As I read on, I realize that nothing is what it seems. Yes, nothing is what it really seems, when it was Edgar's turn to land into shit, it seems that he is in it for good....
I love how the author makes you feel for the characters till the end. Worth your time!
I really liked this book. It was unlike the books I have read lately. I was intrigued from the start. I liked the story being told by different characters. Each time that I thought I had figured out what had happened or what was going to happen, I was surprised by what happened next. I am still thinking about this story...I want to go back and reread it again now that I know how it ends to see if I can pick up details that I missed the first time! I would definitely recommend this book!
A MASTERPIECE: In my 60 plus years on this earth and at least 55 of them with my nose buried in a book I have never come across such an intriguing and captivating story. I was thrown into the story and the characters so deeply I wondered at times if I was going down the rabbit hole with them. How Rachel Roberts describes the emotional roller coaster of her characters makes me wonder if she has herself ever fallen into the black void of insanity. Bravo Ms.Roberts. A job well done.
If you look past the grammar and spelling mistakes, the story is brilliant. And people moaning about the mistakes... realise this woman did all this on her own and created an amazing story, even top books with the best editors have mistakes in them.. All that aside, it is a great book.
Wow. Talk about an unexpected ending. I totally didn’t see that one coming. I thoroughly enjoyed this book.
Although, I was very annoyed at how the “Doctor” was so demeaning towards women. But I had to remind myself that this was set in the 19th century where women, *ahem, sarcasm* “should not educate themselves beyond affairs of the home”.
All in all, this was a well written book. Carefully, and brilliantly plotted with a shocking twist. Ugh, the deception GOT me. I literally thought to myself “Damn, that’s cold.” But really, I expected nothing less of a psychological thriller about a woman in a lunatic asylum.
I wasn't prepared to like this book because of all the rave reviews, so I started it with some scepticism. As it was set in the last century were woman were thought of as inferior to men in intellect and physical abilities, I took great delight in seeing a woman excel in fooling doctors, nurses and her husband in to believing that she was mad. And all for the love of her son who she 'murdered'
Honestly, I picked this book up for $4 at Dollar General on a total impulse-buy whim, and it was totally worth it. It truly had me guessing till the end. Was it the most well-written book I've ever read? No. But it's an excellent first novel and a thrilling page-turner for sure.
The Medea Complex A Novel By Rachel Florence Roberts ISBN: 9780451474148 Author Website: http://rachelflorenceroberts.com/ Brought to you by OBS reviewer Caro
Synopsis:
A deep and riveting psychological thriller inspired by true events of the Victorian era, The Medea Complex explores the nature of the human psyche: what possesses us, what drives us, and how love, passion, and hope for the future can drive us to insanity.
1885. Anne Stanbury wakes up in a strange bed, having been kidnapped from her home. As the panic settles in, she realizes she has been committed to a lunatic asylum, deemed insane and therefore unfit to stand trial for an unspeakable crime. But all is not as it seems….
Edgar Stanbury, her husband as well as a grieving father, is torn between helping his confined wife recover her sanity and seeking revenge for his ruined life. But Anne’s future rests wholly in the hands of Dr. George Savage, chief medical officer of Bethlem Royal Hospital.
The Medea Complex is the darkly compelling story of a lunatic, a lie, and a shocking revelation that elucidates the difference between madness and evil….
Review:
The Medea Complex tells us the story of Lady Stanbury, who has woken up to find herself trapped in the darkness of this small room she does not recognize. She immediately thinks she has been robbed and calls out for the servants. Later she comes to the conclusion that she has been kidnapped. Scared of the situation she has found herself in, she starts to wonder when her captors will ask for money and when her father will rescue her.
When her captors finally come to see her, they address her as Lady Stanbury, a name she doesn’t recognize. The strange thing is that her captors are all wearing nurse gowns or doctor coats. As Anne, gradually, recovers her memories she come to realize that she is in a mental institution for the terrible crime she has committed. Murder.
The Medea Complex is a fascinating book, from its description to its cover to its story, I was caught by it since the beginning. The characters are so alive and eager to tell you what’s going on that they hardly let the reader catch their breath. Anne, is the most mysterious character of the book. She doesn’t understand why she is at the hospital or why her family hasn’t rescued her. But as the story progresses, the reader is able to go more into Anne’s mind and personality. There were parts where her comments were just hilarious. Especially when she is trying to escape during the party. She is a character that you really have to understand to be able to judge.
“I hope for your sake that their hostage-taking skills are better than their musical talent.”
Another character that was a mystery, was Edgar, Anne’s husband. One could say that Edgar was Cinderella, and Anne the Prince. His motives might have been influenced by his father and their tragedies, but half way through the story he comes to realize his true self, even though he’s grieving.
“Men will forgive what women will not.”
There’s also Dr. Savage, Beatrix, Betty, the nurses, and even some of the other hospital patients that were characters I just wanted to read more about. But the most anticipating and thrilling moment was definitely the end where the reader finally learns what happened and why it led to those consequences.
This story is a book you definitely have to read to solve the mystery. I wouldn’t want to spoil it for you. You can also read an essay by the author, where she explains how she came to write The Medea Complex, which I think was the best idea to overcome postpartum depression: write a book.
OBS would like to thank the publisher for supplying a free copy of this title in exchange for an honest review*
"We all enter this world covered in blood. Some of us survive the brutal entry. Yet only a few of us exit without any still on our hands."
The quote is from the book and in my opinion it sums up the whole idea of the novel.
Let aside all you will find wrote about this book regarding the mentals, asylums, various empirical treatments without any scientific substrate, the Victorian era with all its minuses or pluses! They are mere gimmicks that only staging the story’s plot. The main idea of the book is the human condition. As Mark Twain well said: “Of all the animals, man is the only one that lies.” I would say that Mark Twain was deferent. I might add that the man is the only creature that kills for pleasure or cruelty. Of course, we could go back to the subject of craziness, but as you know, throughout the history there have been a bunch of monsters of this type that had a normal behavior in society. But these would be the evident exceptions because, if it is to consider the whole humanity as a species, we have enough reasons to be at least ashamed. Several thousand years of ethics, morality and religion in any form would not have been able to tame us in the least. You don’t believe me? Look a bit around you! And to make peace with ourselves, we named it survival instinct. But... because there is a big but, would you be able to step on dead bodies, to do just about anything to carry out a plan, not only to save you skin? The author had the courage of such exercise in Medea Complex.
There is another element that obstinately appears in all the stories in which the lack transparency is part of the game: money! And if you add in this disturbing mixture a little drop of the evil specter of Eetes king's daughter, the result will be an explosive and terrible one. So you could read the novel in any key you want: Historical Fiction, Thriller, Mystery, even Detective if you like to put together by yourselves the pieces of this dangerous jigsaw. To try, you may do it, but the author will take you on different tracks that at some point will clog and you'll see the big picture only when she will consider that the time has come. And what a picture!
The characters ... you will not meet any to like, maybe only to pity them sometimes, but when their true nature will be revealed, you will catalogue each of them as they deserve. It will be a game of cat-and-mouse in which the victim and the executioner will change their roles several times, a dangerous game in which the main characters will not care if there will be collateral damage. The winner takes all and second place doesn’t exist. The characters are not the usual of an ordinary story, in the sense of the good, the bad, the damsel in distress, which is why I made the introduction.
The ending will come with a little surprise for you because, as it happens in real life, not everything goes accordingly to the plan. You get a denouement that will not enthuse, will not disappoint, but will make you reflect on what I said in the lines above.
The Medea Complex is a well-written novel that will keep your curiosity awake throughout the story, a dark story full of suspense and emotions. The author skillfully built the plot that will develop all the time, and readers will find an exciting and interesting reading.
I don't know where to begin. Should I mention that this novel is undoubtedly spectacular? Or should I say, this "debut" novel is remarkably spectacular? I haven't read a book that has affected me on an emotional level in quite a while. Not like this. The Medea Complex will provoke your thoughts, make you question everything you classify as crazy, and even leave you speechless by the end of the story. Because by then you'll be kicking yourself saying, "I should have seen this coming."
Let's start with the writing, and I have to take a moment to sign and collect my thoughts. It was just absolutely wonderful. The way Rachel captured the setting, the scenarios, every single emotion, was done in such a flawless way. I couldn't stop reading; word after word pulled me in deeper. I love historical fiction mostly having to do with romance, so I must admit that I was a bit apprehensive about going into this one, especially with the creepy blood-splattered girl on the cover and the premise upon which the story is built. Nevertheless, I'm so glad I went in with an open mind. This is historical like no other, guaranteed to leave you shivering.
In regards to the characters and different POVs, it all made sense. I usually get thrown off when there's too much narrators but in this case, it works. I was given the chance to enter the minds of each individual significant to the plot. From start, Anne came off as the innocent wife who went insane. I sympathized with her situation, and at the same time was angry with her. After all, she murdered her child. At least, that's what was presented at start.
When Dr. Savage entered the story, he depicted the characteristics of a man trying to cure the madness, like most individuals in his profession. He worked hard to separate his hospital from the stigmas associated with asylums, by using lesser painful methods in addressing ones insanity. There were times I found him compassionate, considerate, a straight up good doctor. And there were times I found him too naive and ignorant to certain things, especially when it came to Anne's interest in books. But I guess you have to understand that in the particular era, society was crazier.
As for the other characters, more specifically Anne's husband, Edgar, had I not been able to get into his head I would've deemed him as an unkind husband and possibly blame him for everything that had happened. However, I liked him. He was strongly influenced by the selfishness of his own father to place himself in a situation where the consequences would be deadly. I literally felt the pain during his final scenes and almost envisioned myself in his place. That's how convincing the story was. Then again, its all not too far-fetched from actual events.
I don't want to go on any further for I fear I might give away too much. However, I will say this one last thing, Rachel Florence Roberts is a terrific author who has written a story not only dark and intriguing, but focuses on an issue, medical and criminal, still present in today's society. I commend her for writing such a great book and look forward to her next novel.
Ah! I need to think what to say about this one. It was my kind of British humor.
I liked the character of Anne because she wasn't weak.
What can I say without giving the plot away? Well, that not everything is as it seems.
Although I enjoyed crazy Anne, I became a little bored at the beginning. Okay, you are crazy, I got it. But when the true Anne revealed herself... I was hooked.
I liked the way the plot was built. I don't know what the point of the dates at the beginning of each chapter and POV were, though. I felt it was confusing me since I couldn't see a pattern, so I just stopped paying attention to that.
I can't say anything about the historical aspect of the story. I am not familiar with it, and I wasn't wondering if x and x references were right. I read a review that said that the question "are you on drugs?" was not from the Victorian era so the reader DNF the book.
So I was wondering, how did people during that period asked if someone was on drugs? "Are you on hallucinogens?" "Are you on Opium?" It is interesting how little things make us DNF a book (like too much mentioning of red hair, in my case :-))
But I completely get if someone with a Ph. D. on the topic would find discrepancies in any historical fiction.
Anyway, I liked the period the story was set, the language, the dialogue, everything! I wasn't examining if it was Victorian or not, but I was enjoying the story as a whole.
What a psychological thriller! Rachel is one of my new favorite authors. She was able to mingle intrigue throughout this entire plot. So much so that I was questioning everything and everyone. The end is totally epic and actually took me by surprise.
I thoroughly enjoyed getting into Anne's head and learning her plight. It's amazing to see her struggle! But then you get more into the plot and all of these people around her and her husband, Edgar Stanbury, whom I just simply did not like at all, and more and more plots come out. It's such a mire of different plots that someone Rachel is able to gracefully navigate! Not only there but there is some technical jargon in here as well that just blew my mind but again Rachel doesn't just throw it at the reader and make you swallow it, she explains absolutely everything in detail.
About 50% through I was very curious what else was going to happen and I almost wish she would have spread out the beginning a bit more but I think sadly people would have gotten bored. The intrigue just keeps getting ratcheted up from here though and this is when I really started to question everyone and their motives.
I am curious as to how much of this is based on the actual story and how much she added in. Honestly it doesn't matter but I'm curious. Either way Rachel makes an horrific story mesmerizing and seemingly without breaking a sweat. Totally loved it and her writing!
I was given a copy in exchange for an honest review. This is not something I would normally read, yes, I read thrillers, action, adventure, but not based in the past but it was something I was interested in. There is also a bit of courtroom drama going on. This is the authors debut novel, it is based on true events. Nicely written and I loved the way that each chapter, which is written in the first person, corresponding to a different character, the author has written it so well you can really get into each individuals life, thoughts and day to day stuff. I have little knowledge to psychiatric hospitals from this era and therefore it seemed to be sufficiently researched. It is an easy to read book, much more fast paced from the middle onwards. At first you don´t even know why Anne is in the hospital, actually she doesn´t either, she thinks she has been kidnapped and no one explains anything to her. But the answers to all this lie in the ending. The book is dark, but no too much. The ending was brilliant, I was not expecting this at all, very clever indeed. The negative side to this book is the occasional spelling and grammar mistake but this can be easily fixed in the future.
This was an author give-away for my honest review. Here is that review---
This psychological mystery is cleverly based on true events from 1885. A young woman has been sentenced to a lunatic asylum for murdering her young baby son. The story is told from the voices of a number of different people: Lady Stanbury, the baby's mother; Edgar Stanbury, the Lord of the manor by virtue of marrying into the landed family of his wife; Dr. George Savage, the asylum psychologist; and Beatrix, Lady Stanbury's lifelong Lady's maid.
The descriptions of the classification of the asylum inmates, and the treatments of the times was scary and fascinating at the same time. The motivations of all involved was at times convoluted and then sympathetic, while the reader was left wondering what was truth and what was shenanigans perpetrated by the characters. Definitely left me guessing until the end.
Different kind of psychological mystery because of the medical and legal practices of the times. Definitely an intriguing story. I wanted to hug some of the characters, but maybe I should have wanted to shout out--"no, that can't be happening!" instead!! Great first book by this author.
This book started off as a fascinating look into mental health on the late 19th Century. I fell in love with the diary style this book was written in and the choppy changes of perspective worked well with it allowing us brief insights into all the characters lives, however insignificant those viewpoints seemed to be at the start.
A few chapters in I began to suspect that not all was as it seemed, but just what was wrong eluded me, even after the hints began to drop, I was too involved with Ann, I wanted her to get better and just like the doctor I allowed the hints to wash over me and be forgotten.
Slowly things began to fall into place, but I still wasn't sure. I began to question everything the story had set as "fact" and wonder who was actually guilty of what and by the time the good Dr. Savage worked out who was innocent I had managed to come to the same conclusion, but even after completing the story and watching every single piece of previously dismissed trivia fall into perfect place... I still don't know who the bad guy is! I feel sorry for everyone involved and I loved everything about it!