The Taxidermist's Lover

This book is magical. It's a novel narrated in the second person that tells the story of Scarlett's love and infatuation with Henry, a man much older than her, who is a taxidermist.
As soon as they know each other they decide to live together and marry shortly after.

She is obsessed with his work and proposes to give him a new approach: instead of embalming and recreating existing animals, he begins mixing creatures to create new beings.
we are then witnesses of a parade of impossible creatures as we learn about Scarlett's past, her twisted relationship with her twin brother, the death of her parents, among other confessions.

The book, in addition to a novel, is a lyrical work. It is so beautifully written, the descriptions are so emotionally charged that reading it is, without a doubt a treat for the soul and the senses.

I loved it!

A lushly written exploration of love, death, passion, and secrets. Hall's hauntingly eerie imagery draws you into a world like no other. I couldn't put it down!

this felt like a modern day Frankenstein story, and I really enjoyed going though it. The atmosphere had the right amount of tension and I really enjoyed the horror elements..

What an incredibly dark and twisted book this is - I loved it. The writing is exquisite, so lyrical and descriptive. It pulls you in so much to this eerie and haunting world it can be difficult to adjust back to the real world - it packs that much of a punch.

There's a lot to love in the writing of this book but be warned the topics and tropes are darker than dark. It's the kind of book that will utterly drain you but I never think of that as a fault. It's an experience more than a book you just read for entertainment.

A stunning, atmospheric, and gothic story about a woman named Scarlett who is obsessed with her lover’s taxidermy. This story is haunting and WEIRD. The writing is atmospheric and gorgeous but the plot itself had me going “huh”. Scarlett is married to Henry, they fall in love instantly, and Scarlett is obsessed with Henry’s taxidermy work. A very weird and unhealthy obsession....to go along with her traumatized childhood and her weird relationship with her twin brother Rhett. All of Scarlett’s relationships are.... odd to say the least. The story builds and by the end you will not believe it the twist that happens but you know all along that it was bound to end up that way... (I can’t believe the author went there but SHE DID) and oh boy does this book end on a BANGER. I cannot get over the ending and I am still in awe... I just.... if you want a gothic story with taxidermy, weird obsessions and relationships, this is for you.

*Thank you Netgalley and CamCat Publishing for sending me an arc in exchange for an honest review*

This is a weird book. Scarlett is a modern day woman married to a taxidermist, and she narrates the story addressing her husband. “You this” and “you that.”

It took me a good tenth of the book to get used to the narration. Then I was HOOKED.

PROS:
There are bizarre animal things and soul issues I hadn’t thought of before. Kudos to Hall for fresh elements in her story.

I like the way Hall can take an ordinary statement, even a trite, proverbial statement, and then twist it into something emotional and either gorgeous or horrifying. In other words, her prose is unique and wonderful.

We get deep, deep into Scarlett’s psyche, so the end of the book has a huge payoff. Some readers will not like her at all. Some readers will feel sorry for her or perhaps admire her creativity. It doesn’t matter because we are there inside Scarlett’s head when the story wraps up, so it’s a satisfying and powerful ending.

CONS:
Not a con, just a heads up. This is a slower-paced book. Literary, meandering at times, so if you like fast-action plots, perhaps this is not the book for you. I think The Taxidermist’s Lover has the pacing and the vibe of The Unsuitable by Molly Pohlig, so if you liked Pohlig’s book I think you’d like Hall’s book.

Readers who are offended by taxidermy might be offended by the book, but the book isn’t pro-taxidermy. Preserving dead animals is just a vehicle for the theme and plot.

At first I was confused as to HOW the end came about, but no stars off because by the very end everything is explained. Besides, the important parts of the ending (the who and the why) were never unclear.

OVERALL:
Brilliant, gross, disturbing, and sophisticated with lots of food-for-thought about the nature of animals and people and devotion.

There is something about this book that is very poetic; no it isn't poetry, but it has the same air to it. It is raw and profound, but also beautiful, raw, real, gothic, a little unnerving, creepy and sensual in how it is told. You experience the story, not just read it.

I found myself engrossed in the book, wanting more of this story and to know what happens next. I was not disappointed at all. Usually I get a little uncomfortable with explicit intimacy in books because they are distasteful, but the intimacy in this was not like that, some of it was a little rushed (but that's fine), one of the scenes was awkward and not explained, yet the scenes were well-written.

I love the way this is told, the love and reality of the relationship between the main characters of this story, the way the main character feels both in past and present. I do admit, the ending took me for a bit of a turn, I expected it to be different however it was beautifully executed.

I highly recommend this unputdownable book, I'd give a similar book or author, but this was so unique I can think of nothing else to compare it to.

Thank you so very much to Netgalley and the publisher CamCat for the eARC of The Taxidermist's Lover.

So, I finished this one on halloween. It was my halloween read btw, and I'll confess that I don't remember making a wish when I saw this book here, I vaguely remember reading about it.

What an amazing surprise! I can't even think where to begin here. Great characters, full of flaws and weirdness, I love weird and bizarre and this book was spot on!

Scarlett (who has a twin brother named Rhett) is the lover of the taxidermist, she is much younger than him and they have such an overwhelming relationship. Scarlett is too obsessed, too jealous. He is too, but on another level.

I loved the way the story grows till the big reveal, and that we see it coming and still get surprised by it.

But the best thing for me is that it is a gothic romance with a contemporary set. I always think that is difficult to achieve but the writing is brilliant and that author did this splendidly all the way.

Definitely want to by a copy when it is released and can't recommend more.

Gothic tales are my absolutely favorite genre, classic or modern. I love the eerie, dark and gloomy feeling of the stories. I have read a lot of books claiming to be modern Gothic, but they aren’t always true to their description. The Taxidermist’s Lover hits the genre head on in my opinion. Scarlett’s story has the perfect atmosphere of impending doom as she spirals into the madness of her obsession with Henry and his works.

The entire book is told by Scarlett and she addresses Henry the entire time. Dialogue is sparse, yet the writing flows like a beautiful work of art. The author has a way with words that will make you get lost in the pages of her book. In fact, I read through this book in two days, which is really fast for me personally.

The ending was poetic and pure. I can’t say I knew how this story would end, even though I had an inkling. Yet, I didn’t foresee it to be this emotionally charged and dark. A perfect ending for a perfect modern Gothic novel. This is a book that will stay with me for a long time.

Thanks to Netgalley, the author and CamCat Books for the review copy.

Wow. Just wow. This might just be my favorite read of the year.

This book follows about a year in the life of Scarlett and Henry. Henry is a taxidermist living in rural South West England who meets Scarlett one day on the beach. Scarlett is much younger than him (at one point it was mentioned she was half his age but she is very much an adult), and the two have an instant connection. Their relationship is passionate, loving, and pretty weird but the two seem to compliment each other perfectly. Throughout the year, Scarlett learns more about Henry's taxidermy creations as well as his rival, Felix. The two make a promise to be soulmates for all eternity and that promise has far-reaching consequences that neither character could foresee.

This book is categorized as horror and literary fiction which I think are the most fitting genre categories. It is a hauntingly beautiful read and a very, very slow burn on the horror side. The narrative style is from Scarlett's point of view talking to Henry which also feels like she's talking to the reader. For example, the first line in the book is "Do you remember January as I do?" which was a bit more personal than I was expecting because not many books have their whole narrative using 'you'. I quickly got used to it, but I found that this choice enabled me to get sucked right back into the book after having to put it down. This, in hand, really amped up the horror for me because I felt much more ingrained in the story than a regular 3rd person point of view - even though I know that Scarlett is talking to Henry and not me. The overall prose was beautiful to read. Hall's descriptions were very detailed and had some really interesting word choices. The prose was where the literary fiction part really shined for me. I usually don't vibe with literary fiction and find it to be very showy and boring but I think the fact that this beautiful prose was being used to describe such weird and horrific things really won me over. I've seen in some reviews people comparing this book to Frankenstein, which I can see. However, it really reminded me of The Yellow Wallpaper with the vivid descriptions that slowly get more and more disturbing as the narrative continues. I read The Yellow Wallpaper in 2005 for my freshman English class so to have this book flash me back to that story fifteen years later was pretty cool. I haven't read Catherine House, but from what I've been hearing about it, that also might be a somewhat similar vibe.

Where I think this book might lose some readers is the sort of lack of plot. I primarily read thrillers, romance, and sci-fi, most of which are very plot heavy. However, I would categorize myself as a character-driven reader and I think that's why I didn't mind that there wasn't too much going on plot-wise in this book. Like I said earlier, the whole book takes place over the course of a year in the lives of Scarlett and Henry and most chapters are just them going about their daily business. The real driving force behind the story is Scarlett and her feelings about Henry's taxidermy but that is a pretty gradual change. There's one big moment at about the 85% mark where I had to go back and re-read what happened because even that big plot point was sort of hidden in this very languid narrative. When I realized what had happened and what was about to happen, I was absolutely floored. There were aspects and characters that got brought up in the course of the book that I wish got a little more explored like Henry's rivalry with Felix, but that is really based more on just my own curiosity more so than anything else. Looking back, this book was written really tightly and had a lot of things happen but as I was reading, it didn't feel like a whole lot was going on outside of Scarlett's own mind. I think some readers will get frustrated by Scarlett having questions about certain people or certain situations and she will just drop them when Henry doesn't want to talk about them.

The horror elements in this book were perfectly done for my tastes. It swings more toward body horror in that Henry starts making weird hybrid taxidermy creatures. For most of the book (I'd say the first 75%), there isn't much horror except for a very eerie vibe and some very vivid descriptions of Scarlett and her feelings about these creatures. However, in the last 25% of the book, the horror really ramps up and was, in my opinion, perfectly done. The big moment I was talking about above was also when the body horror really took off and it reminded me a lot of the body horror in the manga Uzumaki. It was just realistic enough to really get under my skin but at least in this book, there aren't any illustrations, just the reader's own imagination. The horror really topped off at the end and I don't want to give any spoilers but the whole time reading up to it, I was thinking "oh no, oh no, this can't be where this is going, oh no, I think this book is going there, oh no, yep, it went there" and that's really the best way I can describe it.

This book is definitely not for everyone. I think the cover and title will do a good job of weeding out readers who are automatically put off by the idea of taxidermy. This is a very atmospheric, slow burn, body horror, year in the life sort of story. The prose is beautiful, haunting, and hypnotic. There isn't much in the way of plot other than it being a story of two people living together out in the countryside and how their lives change over the course of a year. This is Polly Hall's debut novel and she hit it out of the park. I'll be looking forward to reading more of her works down the road.


Overall, I absolutely loved this book. The writing style isn't my usual go-to, but it was extremely atmospheric and really pulled me into the story right away. It is a slow-burn horror novel which almost no horror at the beginning but Hall brings in the big guns at the end. I find the overall tone and story to be very similar to The Yellow Wallpaper except much more explicit and with way more body horror. I can't recommend this book more highly - it was fantastic!

272 pages.

Thanks to NetGalley and CamCat Publishing for the ARC.

Publication date is December 8, 2020.