Many thanks to NetGalley, Atria/Emily Bestler Books and Elizabeth Macneal for the opportunity to read and review her debut novel - so intriguing! 4.5 stars!
It's London in the 1850s, straight out of a Dickens tale, in the shadow of the Great Exhibition being built. Twin sisters Iris and Rose are working in a shop painting and making clothes for china dolls modeled after pictures of both living and dead girls. Iris dreams of a different life as an artist; Rose, disfigured from illness, has lost all her dreams. A street urchin with one tooth, Albie, tries to run errands for various people to collect money to help his sister and to save money for false teeth. Silas is a taxidermist who wants to have a museum of all his prize collections. Louis is in a group of artists calling themselves PRB - Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. Louis sees Iris and offers her a job as a model for his painting, with the promise of giving her painting lessons on the side. Meanwhile, Silas sees Iris and becomes obsessed with her.
The writing in this book will transport you back in time. Such a wonderfully creepy tale - I can't wait to read more from this author!
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