The Taxidermist's Lover

by Polly Hall, Justine Eyre (Read by)

Overview

When Scarlett meets taxidermist Henry, a passionate love affair commences. One year later, on Christmas Day, Scarlett recalls the ebb and flow of their intense relationship and tries to unravel her obsession with Henry’s taxidermy creatures and the influence of his rival, Felix. Both enchanted and entrapped by the isolated rural environment on the Somerset moorland she calls home, Scarlett reaches out to her only remaining family, twin brother Rhett, to make sense of the secrets they share. Soon Scarlett realizes that past promises have far reaching consequences.

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

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9798228571662
Publisher:	Blackstone Publishing
Publication date:	09/02/2025
Product dimensions:	5.30(w) x 7.50(h) x (d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Polly Hall's debut, The Taxidermist's Lover, received reviews from the New York Times, Publishers Weekly, Kirkus Reviews, Foreword Reviews and was a Booklist Starred Review. It was a Gold Medal Winner in the Independent Publishers Book Awards, Bram Stoker Awards Finalist for Superior Achievement In A First Novel, and nominated for the Killer Nashville Silver Falchion Awards.

Justine Eyre is a classically trained actress who has narrated many audiobooks, earning the prestigious Audie Award for best narration and numerous Earphones Awards. She is multilingual and known for her great facility with accents. She has appeared on stage, with leading roles in King Lear and The Crucible, and has had starring roles in four films on the indie circuit. Her television credits include Two and a Half Men and Mad Men.

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