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A review by ilseoo
The Taxidermist's Daughter by Kate Mosse
3.0
3,5 stars.
This book was sold to me as an atmospheric thriller with Gothic overtones set in the early 20th century. That description is basically an auto-buy for me. Unfortunately, however, the writing style didn’t live up to my expectations of such a story. The atmosphere and natural setting, which I hoped would be rich and beautifully described, fell a bit flat for me due to the easy language and scarce, simple images that were painted. I did like that the increasing extremity of the weather paralleled the increasing intensity of the plot while approaching its climax, which reminded me of some 19th century romantic works I read. Like the atmosphere, the characters also felt underdeveloped. They were rather flat, and the plot took over from the start. This plot however is what kept me reading. It was extremely fast-paced and exiting, which led me to overlook the other flaws. One warning though, this is the first book I read by Mosse so I didn’t know what to expect, but this book has some extremely violent, bloody scenes from which I had to take breaks while reading them. Definitely not a read for faint-hearted (in other words me).
This book was sold to me as an atmospheric thriller with Gothic overtones set in the early 20th century. That description is basically an auto-buy for me. Unfortunately, however, the writing style didn’t live up to my expectations of such a story. The atmosphere and natural setting, which I hoped would be rich and beautifully described, fell a bit flat for me due to the easy language and scarce, simple images that were painted. I did like that the increasing extremity of the weather paralleled the increasing intensity of the plot while approaching its climax, which reminded me of some 19th century romantic works I read. Like the atmosphere, the characters also felt underdeveloped. They were rather flat, and the plot took over from the start. This plot however is what kept me reading. It was extremely fast-paced and exiting, which led me to overlook the other flaws. One warning though, this is the first book I read by Mosse so I didn’t know what to expect, but this book has some extremely violent, bloody scenes from which I had to take breaks while reading them. Definitely not a read for faint-hearted (in other words me).