This is a great historical fiction read although I left it with a rage at the way women were (are) treated. It takes place in a home for unwed mothers, mostly young women without family or financial support. One night a woman arrives badly beaten and refusing to speak. The story unfolds about the mystery of her circumstance and that of another resident desperate to secure an engagement.

A well-realized, vivid historical setting, with an engaging plot and a range of interesting characters.

The Mesmerist has a lot of potential but unfortunately did not work for me. The writing is solid, and the character development is decent, but the plot is where this novel really stumbles. The book is incredibly character-driven, which can work well for some readers, but for me, it made the story feel painfully slow to get going. I kept waiting for something more to happen, especially with the promise of mesmerism, which seems to be the central theme. But, the mesmerism itself feels almost entirely absent from the narrative, leaving me wondering if I missed something.

While the characters are fine and the writing style is competent, the lack of an engaging plot or any real action left me feeling disconnected. The pace dragged, and despite the best efforts of the prose, I found myself losing interest more than once. Sadly, once I got 30% in, I lost interest and dreaded picking it back up. Overall, The Mesmerist may appeal to readers who enjoy a deeply character-focused story with a slower pace.
Thank you netgalley and Doubleday for a copy in exchange for an honest review.

Take a walk back in time with Faith and May as they unite to become strong women of their time. It has a plot with mystery and a little magic that sets the pace for an intriguing story. I enjoyed the characters as one can only imagine their situation during this time. Caroline Woods creates a time in history that could have been taken from a newspaper from that time.

A new guest lands at the Bethany Home for Unwed Mothers, refusing to speak or explain her arrival, and soon rumors start swirling about her intentions.

I enjoyed this historical fiction novel filled with mystery and character studies.

Thank you to #NetGalley and #DoubledayBooks for a free copy of #TheMesmerist by Caroline Woods. All opinions are my own.

Thank you NetGalley and Doubleday for the ARC of this book. This was a great historical fiction novel that I initially really loved but it just didn't hold my interest. This isn't the book or author's fault, more based on my own inability to engage the book at the time. I did enjoy what I read, I just wasn't able to finish this but look forward to picking it up again one day.

The author obviously did a lot of research into this story based on true events. Be sure and read the author's notes at the end. I loved the setting of the Victorian era, the serial killer story line, and the two of the main characters - Abby and Faith. I was hoping for more mesmerism in this story as the title of the book drew me in. The first half was slow but then picked up with more suspense 3 stars

Woods has the ability to to weave a good story and blend history with a tangled mystery. The story brings to light the rights of women in 1894 Minneapolis and follows May whose investigation navigates a web of lies and danger. A very good read.
Many thanks to Doubleday and to Netgalley for providing me with a galley in exchange for my honest opinion.

This is incredibly well-written and it is very evocative of Minneapolis in the late 1890s, which is a period of time that I’ve read a lot about, but not in this part of the United States. It very much put me into the vibe of “Devil in the white city” by Erik Larson. That’s the time period we’re dealing with here.

Spiritualism and mesmerism was very much all the rage, all the richest people would have these mesmerists come to their parties so this was something that at the time would’ve been very familiar to the citizens of Minneapolis. And it was fascinating to see how this was used in the story.

As I said, this is based on a true crime and I highly recommend that when you finish the book that you read the author's note because she goes into a lot of detail as to where she took poetic license with her story and where she hewed very close to the real characters.

And it is those characters that really win the day in this novel. I think I went into this novel thinking it was a little bit more Maybe or crime centered, and while there is that element of crime here, and it does drive the story forward in a really smoothly delineated way, what you really get here are the characters and their relationships with each other. I love books with strong female characters and this book is almost completely peopled with strong female characters.

We have such a great story about women helping women, about second chances and redemption, about reputation and the ways that our background or our bad choices can affect women and completely change the trajectory of their lives in a way that is not true of men, in the 1890s or now.

We have a strong and fundamentally good lead character who heads up the Bethany Home which is at the center of the story, and we also have examples of female entrepreneurship done in several different ways. But I loved all of it.

Towards the end of the book there’s a line about the importance of “the confederacy of women” and that line is the best way to describe what I truly loved about the story. In my mind it won’t necessarily be shelved on my crime shelf, but it absolutely will be shelved with the books that made me so glad to be a woman in a confederacy of women.

This was an interesting historical fiction story! It covered a time period, place, and subject that felt fresh and different. The author’s note at the end added some additional context about the true story this book is based on which I found very cool. For some reason I still felt a bit distant from the characters and didn’t connect with them like I’d hoped. Overall it was a like not a love.

The Mesmerist by Caroline Woods – I grabbed this on audio and what a wild ride it was. The year is 1894 and our story follows three women from the Bethany Home for Unwed Mothers – the real-life Bethany Home treasurer Abby Mendenhall, the naive resident May, and the mysterious and mesmerizing new inmate Faith. Abby, a staunch Quaker and lifelong supporter of progressive causes, thinks the rumors of dark mystical powers swirling around Faith are nonsense, but she recognizes the danger of a good story, so she asks May to see what she can find out about Faith before her arrival at Bethany House.

And from there comes a story revealing secrets hidden within plain view and exposes the vulnerability of women at this time. There’s murder and mysterious happenings throughout. I couldn’t stop listening. The writing is vivid and I honestly had no idea who to suspect, although I had my list of characters I disliked, and I found myself trusting no one. Stay for the story and for the author’s note because I know I learned things I never knew. Such a well done historical mystery/thriller.

dreary. slow. no magic. I really wanted to give up but thought I'd see it through. Maybe would have been ok to listen to as an audiobook while I was doing other tasks.

This book has a great plot, a great cover, and a great setting. The writing was a little too on-the-nose for my taste and I wish the book left a little more room for reader interpretation.

I tried three times to read this book but I could never get into it. The summary sounds precisely like something I would enjoy but after more than 100 pages nothing had happened. I had to set it aside.

I absolutely love reading novels set in the Victorian era. Add in a dash of the wealthy's obsession in this era with the supernatural, and you've got a great story. And then there's the cherry on top - a glimpse into a home for unwed mothers, a type of place that has its own secret history.

I enjoyed that the story brought together three facets of the period: the wealthy, the downtrodden female {both as prostitute and single mother}, and then the Quaker religion working to help those that needed it. It's not often you'll read about all three in one story, but Woods brings them together seamlessly.

I do feel that we have to read pretty far into the book to find out just who "The Mesmerist" is, and it's somewhat confusing once we do. However, we still discuss others influencing our actions, and imagine how foreign and possible the notion of someone controlling your mind could be over 100 years ago, when very little was understood about the human psyche.

I appreciated that Woods went pretty in-depth when telling us the historical background as well as the inspiration for her characters.

I'd definitely love to read what Woods writes next, especially if she writes a similar period piece.

Thank you to @doubledaybooks for the digital copy to review.

Ahhh this was a wonderful book! A historical thriller based on a true crime during the Golden Age was right up my alley. It focused on three women at the Bethany Home for Unwed Mothers, working to catch America’s first serial killer (unbeknownst to them) and all of the above elements combined made for a delightful and suspenseful read. I listened to this one and loved the audio, I finished in a couple sittings as I was captivated from the start and could not wait to see how it would end. Faith, Abby, and May are three women that I won’t soon forget, and I highly recommend you add this to your list.

This was a different kind of mystery novel with an interesting concept but I couldn’t get enough. When I found out it was based on a true story I enjoyed it even more.

I loved the mystery in this book and I couldn’t put it down. The book was full of some very strong and resilient women.

When Faith shows up at the Bethany Home, it's clear something happened even if she won't talk about it. Meanwhile her roommate May is trying to find her way out of the Home, which lands her in a dangerous situation that has ties to Faith's past. Abby is trying to keep the Bethany Home afloat and continue to provide a safe place for women. Overall, part historical fiction, part mystery, as these three women find themselves entangled and do their best to survive.

The following review was posted on my Goodreads page on 10.14.24:

I'm all about realistic fiction, but I do like those that play a little bit with the idea of magic/the supernatural, keeping the reader slightly wrongfooted throughout the story, wondering what is "real" and what isn't. I picked up THE MESMERIST because the plot summary indicated it might be that type of book. It isn't. The Mesmerism part gets hardly any play in the novel and it's dismissed as "hogwash" right from the start. Right away, the most unique aspect of the book flies out the door. What's left is a murder mystery that's not much of a mystery because it's pretty obvious who the killer is right from the start. It doesn't help that the plot of THE MESMERIST moves really slowly, without much happening until 3/4 of the way through. I almost abandoned the book at the halfway point, but I decided to keep pushing along. In the end, though, it was a meh read for me. The characters are sympathetic but not developed well enough to really snag my heart. The plotting is slow with uneven pacing and no real surprises. And the aspect of the novel I was most excited to read about isn't really delved into much. Bummer.

I loved the premise of this one but it moved so slowly and I didn’t connect to any of the characters.