Gothic atmosphere, set in an asylum in the midst of the Yorkshire Moors....mesmerism in theatres in London? Well this couldn’t be more atmospheric if it tried. Having loved the Little People, I was keen to read this one and it’s a unique world Alison draws, thats for sure. She approaches the shockingly true story of how women could so easily be taken into asylums on the word of their husbands. The scenes - for this novel reads like a series of scenes dimly lit with the sound of candles crackling in your ear, are horrific and even disturbing.
The author also uses many literary references in the novel -with poets Brown and Byron being used to show each of the main characters personalities. The world of mesmerism is drawn with detailed and disturbing words and the overall effect for me was chilling, disturbing and a darn good gothic read.

Thanks Quercus Books and netgalley for this ARC.

This novel is a warning, threat, and empathic look at mental health in the Victorian era. YOu'll be happy to be living in the modern age after reading this one. Doctors and husbands had total control and power over their wives, weaker men, and children. It's a scary concept.

Set in the Victorian Era, Nathaniel Kerner starts work as a Doctor in a remote Yorkshire asylum. He becomes deeply involved with a private patient, Vita Harleston, even following her when she runs away to London.

I am going to start with the good points of this book - there aren't that many but it was enough to lift this from a 1 star to a 2 star. The background and setting of the book is quite reasonable. I did get the sense of the Victorian way of life, the asylum and Victorian London. This wasn't outstanding and didn't show quite the depth of research that I would expect from a historical novel but it was better than many books. The sense of the Victorian world was present.

Unfortunately, there is little else positive to say. The book started reasonably in the first section if quite slowly. We are in Yorkshire following Dr Kerner as he tries treatments for Vita. It all starts to go off course when Kerner brings in a mesmerist to treat Vita. At this point the book wanders off into the rather woolly world of psychics, the dead and mesmerism. This doesn't have to be a woolly topic in the fictional world as Barbara Erskine's "The Mesmerist" shows. However this book just disolved into a woolly mess where neither the reader nor the characters seemed to have a clue what was going on or what was real and what was spiritual.

The second section of the book features some time in London where Dr Kerner is seeking an escaped Vita. To be blunt this was total drivel. There are pages of mushy thoughts about poetry which I skimmed over and were totally unnecessary. The actions of the characters are quite unpredictable and unlikely. Dr Kerner attends the same performance at the Egyptian Hall three times & each time rushes out very quickly after its start into foggy London nights to wander around aimlessly and have strange conversations with unlikely people he meets there. The reader is subjected to such phrases as "I just knew it would be her" - oh good, would you mind explaining how you knew to this slightly bewildered reader?

Once we were back in Yorkshire the writer got the strange poetical ramblings a little under control but I am afraid the plot just did not improve. The ending came as a bit of a relief though I am left with a lot of unanswered questions, unlikely happenings and loose threads.

This book is really a bit of a mess. Even with some serious editing there is little in the way of depth to the plot to make this a good book. This is not an author that I would be in any hurry to read again.

I received a free book via Netgalley.

My review is coming up on Madeleine's Speculative Fiction Review show on artdistrict-radio.com next week (week commencing 9th October 2017 and then available as a podcast from 16th October 2017).

Thanks Quercus Books and netgalley for this ARC.

This novel is a warning, threat, and empathic look at mental health in the Victorian era. YOu'll be happy to be living in the modern age after reading this one. Doctors and husbands had total control and power over their wives, weaker men, and children. It's a scary concept.

This was the first book i've read that was mainly set in an asylum . I enjoyed the historical aspects of this story as well as the creepy, ghostly parts in and around the asylum . Its a wonderful mix of mystery, romance, horror and history . Some of the descriptions of the treatment of the patients, or inmates as they called them, were quite distressing but sadly those things did happen for real in some of these places .
Dr Nathaniel Kerner was an intriguing character as was Mrs Victoria Harleston . It was written in a very interesting way with several diary entries from Dr Kerner as well as some letters which add visual interest to the book .
I recommend it to any fans of asylum, mystery, historical fiction and romance books .

Following the folklore-soaked mystery “The Hidden People”, Alison Littlewood returns to the Victorian era with her latest book, “The Crow Garden”. The novel’s narrator is Nathaniel Kerner, a young “alienist” or “mad-doctor”, who has found a placing as under-physician at Crakethorne Manor, a remote asylum in desolate, rural Yorkshire. The son of a doctor, Kerner has his demons to exorcise – he still feels guilty about having, when still a boy, indirectly encouraged his father’s suicide. This gives him the incentive to prove himself as a “progressive” physician, a proponent of a more humane approach to the treatment of psychological problems. The asylum director, Doctor Chettle, is not too keen about Kerner’s methods, preferring his own phrenological theories and experiments with electric shock treatments. Yet, he gives Kerner a free hand with their latest patient, the “hysterical” Mrs Victoria Harleston, who has been admitted at the behest of her husband. Harleston claims that she is haunted by the ghost of her husband’s son, and that she has the gift of conversing with the dead. After initial conversations with the patient leave little effect, Kerner invites a “mesmerist” in the hope to cure Harleston. The session, however, has unexpected consequences, leaving Kerner in doubt as to whether Harleston is really mad or whether there might be some truth in Mrs Harleston’s allegations and imaginings.

The novel shifts between the mists of Yorkshire and the thick, industrial fog of London; between the oppressive ambience of the mental asylum and the creepy goings-on of the City’s “spiritualist” circles. These settings are well researched and, apart from building a chilling atmosphere, they also give us an authentic snapshot of 19th Century life. The Victorian era however does not merely provide a backdrop to the plot. On the contrary, I felt that the novel is itself a tribute to the popular novels of the time, particularly those of a Gothic, supernatural bent. The narrative voice and dialogue is perfectly pitched – it could have come out of Dickens or, better still, Wilkie Collins. There are also plenty of Gothic tropes – ghostly manifestations, noctural perambulations in grimy streets, madness, obsession and (with more than a nod to “The Woman in White”) the wife placed in an asylum against her will. And as with the best supernatural fiction, there is that constant niggling doubt as to whether the allegedly otherworldly manifestations are all a product of the mind.

Some of Wilkie Collins’s works had a radical (for their time), proto-feminist message. I feel that Littlewood cannily taps into this vein, giving her Victorian novel a more contemporary flavour and going beyond mere pastiche. Her subject-matter and approach – making the 19th Century relevant and appealing to contemporary readers – reminded me of Sarah Waters’s brilliant early novels “Fingersmith” and “Affinity”. “The Crow Garden” certainly deserves to share a shelf with them.

Littlewood does a good job with duplicating Victorian atmosphere and language in this pastiche but the story is overlong and far more drawn out than it needs to be: making it shorter and more compact would have given it more impact. The mix of Victorian asylum, mesmerism/spiritualism and twisted love plays completely to the Gothic vibe and one of my criticisms is that there's nothing surprising here, however well done it may be.

There are lots of literary references from Byron, Browning and A Midsummer Night's Dream (and I enjoyed the Bottom reference in Brown!) but this feels like a story read before. Shortened to a novella, it might have worked better: as it stands I found myself getting impatient especially in that middle section set in London.

Worth a read for fans of Victorian pastiche with a lightly Gothic edge. 3.5 stars.

The Crow Garden is the first novel I have read from author Alison Littlewood and it was a rare treat! I love the idea of novels about madness but it is rare that I find one so well written, most I have found dance around with innuendo and mystery and I find that quite frustrating. Not so with The Crow Garden with echoes of Shutter Island Alison Littlewood builds tension with a novel where everything is evident to the reader and not to the characters themselves!



Nathaniel Kerner is determined to become an Alienist or 'mad-doctor' treating patients in an asylum to atone for his father's suicide, for which he blames himself. Soon he finds himself in his first position at Crakethorn, an old Manor House and now asylum where he meets the beautiful yet damaged Mrs Harleston. But as tension builds between the characters the lines between madness and sanity become blurred.



Spotted with the poetry of Browning and Byron, the story tells of a terrible love story woven with insanity, in a time when it really was unclear who was mad and who was not. A time when Doctors were allowed free will to carry out barbarous treatments and patients could be admitted purely for being epileptic. The setting on the Yorkshire Moors and the time which is perceived to be Victorian times only add to the dark and cryptic storyline.



Alison Littlewood's writing reminds me a lot of the writing of Daphne Du Maurier and I feel that is the biggest complement I can afford the author of The Crow Garden a fantastic novel and highly recommended!