Publishers Weekly
11/14/2016
Set in 1763 London, Ellis’s debut novel confronts the darker aspects of femininity through the life of wealthy and sheltered Anne Jaccob. Even though her parents have handpicked a suitable husband for her, Anne chafes against the idea of a traditional marriage and finds herself jaded toward love after the death of her younger brother and her mother’s failed pregnancies. Despite Anne’s aloofness about her own future, she becomes infatuated with a butcher’s apprentice, Fub. Subverting her father’s wishes that she marry an older business associate of his who repulses her, Anne begins a secret romance with Fub. Their surreptitious encounters and the exhilaration the secret relationship inspires Anne’s darker nature to bloom. Ellis’s compelling plot rests on Anne’s formative sexuality and constantly returns to differing conceptions of love and the lengths people go to in order to protect their status and reputation. The unwillingness of anyone in the story to view Anne as more emotionally complicated than a child leads her self-discovery to run amok, and Ellis to explore the stifling effects of such repressive views of sexuality. Ellis’s use of vivid imagery and focus on grisly detail add a macabre beauty to a stirring story. (Jan.)
The Daily Mail
"Ellis has created a surprising blend of psychological thriller and revenge tragedy in her debut novel. But from it emerges an unsettling portrait of a deeply damaged individual whose capacity for creating mayhem is timeless."
Ian Stuart
"The sonnets of John Donne provide a brooding counter-point to the gruesome turns of this nervy historical novel. Trained as an actor, the author reveals that pedigree in wry winks to Shakespeare and dramatis personae evocative of comedia dell’arte."
Paste
"Although it lulls the reader into complacency using well worn tropes, The Butcher’s Hook then rips them apart to reveal something far darker."
British Heritage Travel
"A shocking and strong first novel. Though this dark, gothic novel takes place the better part of a century before Victorian-era Oliver Twist and Great Expectations, there’s something a little Dickensian about Ellis’ writing: the sharp patter, entertaining dialects and gritty, grimy, visceral descriptions that make the texture and smells of Georgian London feel entirely present."
Elle UK (Best New Books for 2016)
"This is a dark, weird, gloriously feminist story of a girl in 1763 pushing against the limits of her role and a dark love story."
The Times (London)
"This author remains one to watch. She has a sharp eye and a sharper wit. Ellis has a public personality of great charm, and a good deal of this gets into her writing—she revels in the historical details, has a grasp of pace and knows how to keep her audience hooked."
The Observer (London)
"The Butcher's Hook doesn't read like a first novel—it is a high-finish performance. Its heroine is an 18th-century teenage girl, who starts demurely although her sex drive turns out to be anything but demure. You need to be braced for violence to rival any Jacobean tragedy: The Butcher's Hook will hook you."
Ian Stuart - New York Times Book Review
The sonnets of John Donne provide a brooding counter-point to the gruesome turns of this nervy historical novel. Trained as an actor, the author reveals that pedigree in wry winks to Shakespeare and dramatis personae evocative of comedia dell’arte.
Paste
Although it lulls the reader into complacency using well worn tropes, The Butcher’s Hook then rips them apart to reveal something far darker.
Library Journal
11/01/2016
Largely ignored by the entire household and still mourning the death of the only person she loved, her infant brother, wealthy merchant's daughter Anne Jacob is an outcast at the fringes of a family. She has no particular or meaningful connections to the outside world until she meets Fub, the butcher's apprentice. It's no wonder that this lonely young woman on the brink of discovering her burgeoning sexuality is instantly obsessed with the handsome, swaggering man. Lust, coupled with the threat of a forced marriage to one of her father's friends, makes Anne bold; even as the world is closing in on her, she makes a dramatic bid for freedom that will leave readers gasping. VERDICT In her first novel, Ellis weaves a darkly psychological tale set in the rough-and-tumble, vulgar, colorful London of Moll Flanders and Tom Jones. Evoking pity, abhorrence, admiration, and disgust, this title is strongly recommended for readers with a love of Georgian literature and Georgian London and those intrigued by the complexity of the human psyche.—Cynthia Johnson, formerly with Cary Memorial Lib., Lexington, MA
School Library Journal
08/01/2017
At first this title may seem like an oft-told tale—a poor little rich girl in Georgian England must marry an unappealing man, but she falls in love with someone beneath her station. However, the story goes deeper, and fast. As a child, Anne is taken advantage of by a teacher, leaving her with a skewed idea of the power of sex. Later in life, when Anne meets Fub, the butcher's apprentice, her sexuality is unleashed and she will let nothing stand in her way. She has no use for the unfortunately named Mr. Onions, who has been promised her hand in marriage; Margaret, Fub's intended; or even the aforementioned teacher. What begins as a bit of a slow burn turns horrifying as Anne becomes willing to do anything for Fub, even as she realizes he's not worth it. The heroine is amoral but not entirely unsympathetic. Debut novelist Ellis uses cunning turns of phrase ("He carried a great deal of his luncheon in his beard, and often it was not even the luncheon of the day, but of several days before."). Does Anne get her just deserts? That question would prompt a spicy book discussion. VERDICT Part horror, part historical fiction, this offering will appeal to those with darkly gothic tastes.—Jamie Watson, Baltimore County Public Library
Kirkus Reviews
2016-09-26
In an isolated manor on the outskirts of London in 1763, 19-year-old Anne Jaccob has reached the end of hope. What can come after but revenge?British television presenter and debut novelist Ellis conjures a dark, grimy world rife with thwarted desires and relentless death. With a keen eye for tortured reasoning and twisted motivations, Ellis draws bewitchingly disturbed souls. Indeed, Anne is surrounded by characters who foster seeds of anger deep in her soul: her mother, exhausted by multiple, mostly fruitless pregnancies, has shown her the hopelessness of breeding. Her father, embittered at the loss of his only son, finds endless fault with everything from the meat on the table to Anne herself. Worse, he arranged for the leering Dr. Edwards to tutor the intelligent Anne. Yet Dr. Edwards breached that trust and quashed Anne’s natural curiosity about the world when he took her small, 9-year-old hand and opened his breeches. Together her unfortunate parents have selected the simpering, odious Simeon Onions to court her. Yet a chance encounter with Fub, the butcher’s apprentice, who’s more formally known as Frederick Warners, sparks new life within Anne. Soon she has not only forsaken social propriety to roam the streets in search of Fub but also tumbled headlong into a passionate affair with him. Ellis, however, masterfully tightens a web around Anne as the spiders of Dr. Edwards and Simeon Onions catch news of Anne and Fub’s affair, seeing opportunities for blackmail. To Anne’s further consternation, Fub himself disappoints her. They have all, of course, mistaken Anne for a malleable girl. She has become, instead, a venomous creature herself, a Georgian Fury, and the course of her revenge is delightfully horrific. Cinderella turns the tables in this gruesome yet engrossing fairy tale that begs for a sequel.
