Back when I once was a bookseller, my store acquired plenty of ARCs (advanced readers copies), and over time I developed quite the collection. One such ARC had been collecting dust on my shelves until about a month ago when I had an odd yearning for seafaring fiction. Things in Jars by Jess Kidd turned out to be just what I was looking for and so much more. In fact, I think I can safely say this book has become one of my top five favorite novels.
In the mildewy back alleyways of Victorian London, detective Birdie Devine can see ghosts…amongst other nefarious oddities. She solves mysteries like any good detective, although her uncanny abilities put her in strange paths—solving the disappearance of Christabel Berwick being one such adventure. Christabel, the secret daughter of Sir Edmund Athelstan Berwick, is a peculiar child with occult gifts and mer-like characteristics that draw perhaps too much attention from curiosity collectors. As Birdie sets forth on this case, she unearths memories from her past she had hoped to keep long buried.
While the characters in this novel are wonderfully unique, and the plot is reminiscent of folk horror stories, the writing is easily the best part. A bit confusing to get acquainted with at first, eventually the lyrical sentences and vivid imagery coalesce into an ethereal writing style that provides such a sharp, uncanny painting of each chapter. This style of writing can either make or break a book, but in my own bias I’ve decided that I simply adore it. It is just as chilling and metaphorical as the plot, effortlessly melding together the content and the way in which it is delivered to us readers. What I consider beguiling some might find a bit baffling, although we all read one story a million different ways.
Here are some excerpts from the earlier chapters, just to get a taste…
“The cook snores fruity, unpeeled, and well soaked under warm sheets, as solid and brandy scented as plum pudding.”
“Breathe in—but not too deeply.
…Follow the fulsome fumes from the tanners and the reek from the brewery, butterscotch rotten, drifting across Seven Dials. Keep on past the mothballs at the cheap tailor’s and turn left at the singed silk of the maddened hatter. Just beyond you’ll detect the unwashed crotch of the overworked prostitute and the Christian sweat of the charwoman. On every inhale a shifting scale of onions and scalded milk, chrysanthemums and spiced apple, broiled meat and wet straw, and the sudden stench of the Thames as the wind changes direction and blows up the knotted backstreets.”
“…autumn warmth, fuller-bodied and lovelier than summer heat, with the mellow dying of the season in it.”
Anthology of V. 