Reverend True’s son Thomas has escaped the confines of his father’s rectory in Highgate to experience life in the city of London, a magical place that Thomas has dreamt about moving to for a long time. Knowing that he is not like his fellow young men in the countryside, and aware of his parents displeasure of his nature, Thomas decides that London life is for him. After years of saving his allowance, and much corresponding with his cousin Abigail, Thomas boards the mail coach for his adventure. After losing his balance on the coach, Thomas finds himself in an alleyway, and meets Jack Huffins, who later, as his alter ego Sweet Jacky, introduces the newcomer to the delights of Mother Clap’s.

After all the hype and media attention for this book I was really pleased to have been offered an arc. I found it to be an atmospheric, and eventually an engaging read, with colourful characters, and an intriguing plot.

With full disclosure I will admit that I did think this book would be a DNF, as there were so many characters that it took a while to get them straight, especially as they had their molly names as well, and the plot did jump about a fair bit. However I did persevere and was snared enough to want to know more. One downside for me was the Blackguard/Alsatia theme, not at all sure what that was about, though the Author’s Note was helpful.

A well written book in the main, but not entirely what I was expecting.

Thank you NetGalley and Orenda Books.

I love a good queer Victorian book! The main character was very sweet :)
I learned a lot about Molly houses here- even though I wish the book was slightly more historical than character driven, I think it’s an amazing book to write.

Thank you for the ARC!

[dnf @ 111 pages]

I wanted to like this book, I really really did. Queer historical fiction? Sign me up!
However the constantly switching POVs just made it hard to follow for me, and it felt as though there wasn't time to get into the swing of one character before it switched perspectives again. Ultimately I felt as though I was putting more effort into keeping the characters straight than I was to the plot or what any of the characters were actually doing.