The Taxidermist's Lover

by Polly Hall, Justine Eyre (Read by)

Overview

From award-winning author Polly Hall comes a “lyrical debut” (Booklist, Starred Review) and contemporary gothic tale “filled with startling conclusions about the nature of art and love and death” (NYT Book Review).

A modern Gothic tale of a woman obsessed with her lover’s taxidermy creatures and haunted by her past.

One stormy Christmas, Scarlett recalls the ebb and flow of a yearlong love affair with Henry, a renowned taxidermist. Obsessed with his taxidermy creatures, she pushes him to outdo his colleague and world-famous rival in a crescendo of species-blending creativity. Scarlett will not be able to avoid a reckoning with her own past as Henry’s inventions creep into her own thoughts, dreams, and desires.

Drenched in the torrential rains of the Somerset moorland and the sensual pleasures of the characters, The Taxidermist’s Lover lures you ever deeper into Scarlett’s delightfully eerie world.

Bram Stoker Award Shortlist for Superior Achievement in a First Novel • IPPY Awards 2021 Gold Medal Winner

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9798228571655
Publisher:	Blackstone Publishing
Publication date:	09/02/2025
Product dimensions:	5.20(w) x 5.70(h) x (d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Polly Hall has been published in various anthologies and won competitions for her poetry and flash fiction. She holds an MA in Creative Writing from Bath Spa University. A longstanding member of a Somerset writers’ group, she also teaches creative writing workshops. The Taxidermist’s Lover is her first novel.

She lives next to a cider factory with her cat, Vishnu. You can find out more about her writing projects at www.pollyhall.co.uk or @PollyHallWriter.

Editorial Reviews

The menace increases slowly but relentlessly, permeating every corner, and the twists, plentiful but also well earned, pile up, resolving in a near-perfect horror ending . . . [A] lyrical debut, told with the confidence of a veteran.” —Booklist, Starred Review

“Creepy and sensual . . . the tension between Scarlett and Henry is riveting . . . making The Taxidermist’s Lover a luxurious, macabre romance.” —Foreword Reviews

“As strange as it is disturbing . . . It’s [Scarlett’s] highly personal confessional tone, exposed internal conflicts, grotesque dreams, and desires that draw the reader in.” —Kirkus Reviews

“Rich, decadent prose . . . allusions to The Bride of Frankenstein nicely ground the ending in the gothic tradition.” —Publishers Weekly

“Hall’s writing is lush, filled with startling conclusions about the nature of art and love and death.” —New York Times Book Review

From the Publisher

2020-10-14
A gothic romance with a self-fulfilling title.

Hall’s first novel, set in the rural wetlands of South West England, is as strange as it is disturbing. Scarlett is the narrator and the significantly younger lover of a skilled taxidermist named Henry, to whom she addresses this story. It's her highly personal confessional tone, exposed internal conflicts, grotesque dreams, and desires that draw the reader in—but it's her constant reference to Henry as “you” that cements the too-close discomfort that permeates the novel (“You messed with nature” or “When we made love, I’d somehow taste the essence of the creatures you’d been handling”). Hall wastes no time revealing the couple’s odd predilections. In Chapter 1, they begin to imagine the possibility of “mystical menageries” instead of the traditional taxidermy (a “crabbit” is the combination of a crow and a rabbit; a “stox” is a red fox with a stork’s wings). “The market is dwindling. It’s all high-brow conceptual stuff nowadays,” Scarlett rationalizes. Though a few other characters enter the tale—the world’s best taxidermist Felix De Souza, Penny the flirtatious neighbor, and Scarlett’s twin brother, Rhett—Scarlett’s obsessions are central at all times. While it's clear from the start that this tale cannot end happily, the last quarter is the most propulsive, even if readers might be disappointed by the predictability of the ending.

Not for the squeamish, this book will appeal to readers unafraid of adjectives or an investigation of the unnatural.

Kirkus Reviews