The Butcher's Hook
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
London, summer 1763.At nineteen, Anne Jacob is awakened to the possibility of joy when she meets Fub, the butcher's apprentice, and begins to imagine a life of passion with him. The only daughter of well-to-do parents, Anne lives a sheltered life. Her home is a miserable place. Though her family want for nothing, her father in uncaring, her mother is ailing, and the baby brother who taught her to love is dead.Unfortunately her parents have already chosen a more suitable husband for her than Fub. But Anne is a determined young woman, with an idiosyncratic moral compass. In the matter of pursuing her own happiness, she shows no fear or hesitation. Even if it means getting a little blood on her hands.A vivid and surprising tale, The Butcher's Hook brims with the color and atmosphere of Georgian London, as seen through the eyes of a strange and memorable young woman.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
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.
