Skip to main content

Review: The Fatal Tree

The Fatal Tree The Fatal Tree by Jake Arnott
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book is based on real life characters of the 18th Century.

Elizabeth Lyon "Edgeware Bess" is portrayed with a fictional backstory however, she was indeed a prostitute and a thief during these times in London and was well acquainted with the Black Lion Pub, Jonathan Wild "The Thief Taker" and Jack Sheppard.

Jonathan Wild was notorious for working both sides of the law and eventually was handed over by his own men for his duplicity.

Jack Sheppard grew up in a workhouse with his mother after his fathers death before taking on an apprenticeship in his fathers trade of Carpentry.

What is unique about this book is the language, the back of the book has a useful glossary of terms for the slang used however, I found it extremely easy to work out the meanings and it never stopped or stilted the path of the story.

The story itself is based around actual events noted in the archives of the Old Bailey and begins introducing Elizabeth Lyon in rural servitude, her fall from grace and path to London's underbelly leading her to both prostitution and her initial manipulation to crime by Jonathan Wild before she meets and marries Jack.

There is thankfully no forced happy ending to this book, just the harsh reality of the times but to the very end, you feel exposed to the filth, degredation and underhandedness of that time.

The unique coloqiolisms of the writing along with Jack Arnott's writing style makes this book easy to read and the pacing drew me back time and again even if only for a few pages.

This true crime history was a great read and I gave it 4*'s

View all my reviews

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Review: The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock

The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock by Imogen Hermes Gowar My rating: 1 of 5 stars This book is set in 1785 when a merchant Mr Hancock is handed into his possession a shrivelled body of a mermaid in lieu of a ship he was expecting to return. This starts an event of trying to recoup his losses by displaying the oddity to those of interest at a sum. Angelica Neal is a women used to being kept but has fallen on hard times, her previous lover has passed away and she finds herself fighting for survival and recognition to keep herself out of the high paid establishments and prostitution that will be her plight. Instead Angelica seeks a new lover and a higher status than that previously achieved. Despite the high acclaim from my fellow Book Tuber's unfortunately this book did not quite meet my expectation. I found this book to read in a very slow and dry manner which left me unable to connect either with the content of the story or unfortunately the characters....
Post a Comment
Read more

BOOK REVIEW: Always Here for You by Miriam Halahmy

Young Adult - Trigger Warning for Child Grooming on the Internet   Holly is 14 and feels alone, her best friend has moved away to Canada and her parents are dealing the normal stresses of both work and home life as well as caring for an elderly member of the family. This has caused Holly to feel both isolated and alone, spending increasingly longer amounts of time fending for herself and in the house alone, where she is terrified of every noise that she hears. Her mum does try to get her to befriend Noah, a boy in her year who is experiencing bullying from another class mate and member of his synagogue. Although Holly does not realise it this friendship may not only save Noah, but also herself. Then Holly meets Jay, someone she believes is friends with her bestie Amy and other people in school as he was posted about on an online forum, quickly this situation gets out of hand and she begins to isolate herself from those she cares about and her personality notably changes. Is Jay wha...
Post a Comment
Read more

Review: A Portable Shelter

A Portable Shelter by Kirsty Logan My rating: 4 of 5 stars I am not one to always get on with a book based in magical realism however, I had heard such good things about this book I could not resist giving it a chance. This book is based on a gay couple Ruth and Liska who have moved to a remote coastal cottage in Scotland while Ruth carries their first child. Each of them spends time telling the baby stories containing moral and life lessons from what they have learnt. This includes many magical realism tales including selkies, werewolves and child-eating witches. They agree not to tell stories to the baby so each of them are relaying their tales in secret from each other. I really did enjoy the small tales included within the overall story of Ruth and Liska however, was somewhat disappointed when the concluding story was about Death. I felt sad that the child was not born during the final pages of the book and felt extremely curious to find out with a mot...
Post a Comment
Read more