Amy Carol Reeves

Fieldnotes:
Whitechapel, 1888

1 Manipulative Wayward Teen with
Unrealistic Knife-Throwing Skills, and an
Unsubstantiated High Opinion of Her Ability to Solve Medical Problems after 1 Week of Cleaning Bottles
2 Handsome Suitors, of which
1 Golden and Serene and Respectable, and
1 Dark and Brooding and Connected to the Pre-Raphaelites

1 Long-Suffering Grandmother Hoping for Respectability
1 Dark Horse of a Butler
Several Prostitutes and Poverty-Stricken Women Used Largely as Plot Decoration

1 Highly Improbable Charitable Job at Whitechapel Hospital
1 Deeply Implausible Chase Across London (5 miles!)
1 Frenzied Mob Bent on Vengeance
1 Perplexing Familial Web of Illegitimate Children and Adoptees
1 Avuncular Doctor who Treats Our Protagonist as an Intellectual Equal with Absolutely No Basis

Several Psychic(?) Visions of:
1 Serial Killer on the Loose in Whitechapel
5 Canonical Victims & Patients
1 Hapless Police Inspector
1 Conclave of Cultish Conspirators (Gothic Variety)
1 Ritual Chalice
1 Dodo

The ranty version:
Honestly, I should have given up after chapter 1 when our 17 year-old heroine of supposed gentle birth chased a ragamuffin pickpocket at a dead run for FIVE MILES across the entirety of London from Kensington to Whitechapel in a BUSTLE and presumably a CORSET and HEELED BOOTS without so much as noting it. THIS IS NONSENSE OF THE HIGHEST ORDER.

But I persevered, unfortunately. Our heroine is Miss Arabella Sharp (but call her Abby) - she has been saved from impecunity when her governess mother dies in London by a grandmother who wants to restore her family to respectability. But Abby, far from being grateful in any measure, thinks she can run off to become a governess (and the book quotes a lot of Jane Eyre at us to make us see parallels between the headstrong heroines). So, in a last-ditch effort to drum some compassion and sense of the life she is escaping with her grandmother's help, she is sent to do some charity work at the Whitechapel Hospital for Women among the drunks, the disease-ridden and the prostitutes of the slums of the East End. Far from acknowledging the danger she faces, Abby decides that she wants to be treated as a "colleague" and will go to medical school... *oof*

We have two young men vying for Abby's affections for no apparent reason. One is the golden-haired, calm and respectable Simon St. John. He is (obviously) destined to lose out to the dark, brooding and inexplicably hostile William Siddal - adopted by Dante Rossetti of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and named after his (deceased) muse. William lives with poet Christina Rossetti who has her own charitable work with prostitutes and unfortunates. It turns out later that Abby's mother also painted with the Pre-Raphaelites for a while and this is when she lost her mother's approval.

Patients of the hospital are being murdered and Abby is seeing visions of the murders and some sort of ritual involving a chalice. There are occasionally moments that were suitably creepy (the footsteps in the attic, for example), but for the most part the Ripper background seemed tacked on and the victims (despite our meeting them on-page) largely throwaway. Abby keeps running around the Whitechapel rookeries in the dark with no apparent regard for her own safety and seems to think being able to throw knives with the street urchins of Dublin has prepared her to fight off a murderer. This truly bone-headed assumption often turns out to be correct in ways that had me gritting my teeth at her supposed "strong will" and "gumption" that in any world that obeyed normal physics would have seen her killed by Chapter 3.

The ultimate explanation for the Ripper murders and the chalice is frankly absurd: the chalice is used in a ritual involving an elixir from the philosopher's stone and the doctor at the hospital and his cabal of housemates are immortal (from natural causes). The murders are perpetrated by Max - and are intended merely to draw attention to the poverty and misery of the East End...as a messed-up social engineering. Also apparently he can possess others' bodies and crawl down walls like a spider.... I didn't like Abby and thought her stubborn insistence on playing an "active" part in her life amounted to nose-cutting spiteful teenaged stupidity rather than any sort of useful or legitimate drive. The love triangle was banal and neither of these milquetoasts had any actual personality. I will not be continuing the series.… (mer)

4.5/5
A solid series! Ghoulish, bloodthirsty and undeniably Gothic.

I remember thinking that the main heroine Abbie Sharp, is an exceptionally strong and wilful woman. It's a pleasure to read about her from the first book to the last.

Resurrection is a fiery conclusion of the chase started in the first book, where young Abbie connected on psychic level to a mysterious assassin of The Conclave, Max. After a period of quiet following the destruction of lamia and William's release, Abbie and Simon return to London to get back to their work in Whitechapel hospital.

However, yet again the city is shaken by a series of grisly murders where the victims from all ages and social backgrounds are being attacked and cannibalized. Alarmed, Simon, Abbie and William, suspect that Max is behind it all as the last remnant of The Conclave. In addition they receive a call from a representative of The Queen in the matter of The Conclave, who tries to force them to solve the murders for him.

The book is intense, violent and pretty grippy in a typical for Miss Reeves manner. I love how she doesn't soften the blows for her characters and make the consequences of their actions and decisions as real as possible. Abbie with her knives is phenomenal, and the final fight only proves that. Great historical paranormal fiction; I really enjoyed it and secretly hope for more.… (mer)

I loved the previous book in the series, Ripper, and I really enjoyed this book as well. It was very atmospheric and full of interesting historical details amid dark psychic visions and bloody mysteries left in Conclave's demise.

I applaud heroines like Arabella. She is a warrior, fierce and stubborn. She is not a damsel in distress and her every action only proves it again and again. She is actually the character who does all the dirty work in both books. In that trait she is very similar to Ripper - she has an innate talent for killing, and she fights dirty.

In Renegade, Arabella tries to come back to normal life after what happened to the Conclave, however life gives her a blow after blow. She finds out something about William that makes her doubt him to the points of breaking all ties, and she still has this weird connection to Simon, whom I admit I favour much more.

Then when William disappears, it's up to Arabella to find him with the help of Simon, and to vanquish the creature who guards him.

Now that creature's thoughts is what perhaps slowed down the book for me and diminished my pleasure of reading. She has perhaps third of the book to herself, while she reminisces about her past and does her dirty deeds. However I found her so unexciting, I kept wanting to get back to Arabella...

There are also two major plots in the book: Arabella and Ripper's connection, and mysterious cannibalistic murders in London. Now this I suspect has something to do with vampirism, and reminded me strongly of Bram Stoker's Dracula, but unfortunately that threat disappears without any sort of conclusion. I suspect it will renew itself in the next book.

All in all, it's a pretty good book despite some structural misgivings. Recommended.… (mer)

4.25/5
I actually loved that book! Very much like Firelight, it brings distinct Gothic notes to the new type of historical paranormals, which is very refreshing.

The prose is vivid, luscious, mysterious and full of hidden meaning like Pre-Raphaelites paintings.

Arabella is very brave in the best traditions of Gothic literature. She grew up on the streets of Dublin where her mother, an estranged daughter of an aristocrat worked as a governess until she died. Then Arabella's grandmother brought her back to London and in an attempt to make the wild girl appreciate her luxuries and be grateful for them, she ordered Arabella to help out in a hospital in Whitechapel just at the time when the famous Ripper murders started...

I'll tell you straight away, that girl will surprise you with her tenacity and bloodthirstiness. I was pretty shocked in the end and cheering for her. Not once she whined or waited for her two gentlemen admirers to save her, and I loved every bit of it. She is unconventional, adventurous and knows her mind.

The world-building is not explored much, but it's such a fast, glorious, dark read, you forgive this book its drawbacks.

Recommended to everyone who loved Firelight by Kristen Callihan. The feel of the book is very similar to it.… (mer)