The Secrets of Life and Death by Rebecca Alexander ISBN: 9780804140690
Series: Jackdaw Hammond #1
Published by Crown on October 7, 2014
Genres: Historical Fiction, Mystery, Urban Fantasy
Pages: 370
Format: Paperback
Goodreads | The StoryGraph
Amazon, Bookshop.org, Better World Books, Book Depository
In modern day England, Professor Felix Guichard is called in to identify occult symbols found on the corpse of a young girl. His investigation brings him in contact with a mysterious woman, Jackdaw Hammond, who guards a monumental secret--She's Dead. Or she would be, were it not for magic which has artificially extended her life. But someone else knows her secret. Someone very old and very powerful, who won't rest until they've taken the magic that keeps her alive....
In Krakow in 1585, Dr John Dee, the Elizabethan Alchemist and Occultist, and his assistant Edward Kelley have been summoned by the King of Poland to save the life of his niece, the infamous Countess Elisabeth Bathory. But they soon realize that the only thing worse than the Countess' malady, is the magic that might be able to save her...
As Jackdaw and Felix race to uncover the truth about the person hunting her, it becomes clear that the answers they seek can only be found in the ancient diary of John Dee's assistant, Edward Kelley. Together they must solve a mystery centuries in the making, or die trying.
Characters: 6, Jack is emotionally cold and distant and we don’t get much of her inner life, so I didn’t connect with her (or any of the characters, if I’m honest). Maybe this was deliberate, given what Jack is? I wouldn’t call the characters memorable, though the secondary characters were additive to the story (and necessary for the plot). This is definitely a plot-driven story with not much in the way of character development, and a romance that felt forced and insta-love to me.
Atmosphere: 7, the events in 1585 are well-described and done so without the bias I’m sure Edward Kelley would’ve had toward women and foreigners (thankfully). The events during the modern day felt more sparse- I got an idea of the setting, more or less, but not a sense of the emotion of a scene.
Writing: 6, I found the dialogue choppy at best, with things seeming to jump track in tone and absolutely no fallout from that- at least for the modern part of the story. Kelley’s dialogue felt realistic and came from a place of emotion and understanding. The writing itself felt a bit rushed, though not difficult to follow or overly florid. I don’t really have the desire to read anything else by the author, though. The flip-fopped perspectives and timelines was difficult for me as every other chapter changed which story I was invested in.
Plot: 7, though the concepts are interesting, there’s very little in the way of surprises for half the plot, because the ending of one story is given to us at the start. The pacing of the 1585 story was tight and tense, but the pacing of the modern story was not, and flipping between the two caused things to feel very uneven. I didn’t believe the romance at all, and there’s too much fanwanking and assumptions I had to make as the reader, in order to understand Jack’s motivations.
Intrigue: 5, I had to push myself to read this, unfortunately. It took 8 days (6 really, because 2 of those I spent reading Ghosted), so it wasn’t total torture. But I wasn’t very engaged.
Logic: 8, all of this involves a suspension of disbelief, which isn’t an issue for me, but that does make ‘logic’ a bit murky. So far as I could tell, things followed logic in the world as it’s revealed to us. The characters in 1585 followed their fears and ambitions pretty solidly, even when conflicted and held captive. The ambitions and fears of the modern characters were just not known, so I can’t say if anyone acted logically, outside of maternal instincts.
Enjoyment: 6, meh.
Reading this book contributed to these challenges:
Leave a Reply