Thank you to NetGalley for this five star read.
It is not a book I read quickly. The style and format of the story, presented primarily in correspondence between characters, is filled with vivid description and the specific detail and wording of the writing is perfect for setting the atmosphere of the era where the tale unfolds.

If you're already familiar with the story of Sweeney Todd, The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, you will find a whole new version of it here, through the voice of Mrs Lovett. You can decide how reliable a narrator she is, but the final twist in the story is so much fun.

I recommend reading this book with a large cup of tea, cozy beside a fire this winter. You won't regret it.

Retellings are in vogue right now. If I were being generous, I'd say it's out of a desire to see the humanity in people who have traditionally been denied it. If I were being snarky, I'd say it's a lazy shortcut to sales. The truth is probably somewhere in the middle.

"The Butcher's Daughter" is at its strongest when it isn't tied back to Sweeney Todd - which, honestly, is for most of it. Sweeney himself doesn't appear until about 3/4ths of the way through the book. The rest is taken up with our heroine, Margery, as she finds herself in the employ of a mysterious doctor with ties to the Freemasons, an invalid wife, and a secret laboratory she's not allowed to enter. This part of the story is genuinely quite compelling, and I honestly wish the Mrs. Lovett aspect had been ditched entirely and the book had leaned into the Gothic of it all! Because as soon as this section ends, the pace slows and the characters get less interesting, the milieu less vivid.

(Speaking of the characters getting less interesting - man, Aphra was such a cipher! And she shouldn't have been! It kind of felt like the authors wanted there to be some kind of romance in there, but it added nothing and I didn't care about it.)

While Clark and Demchuk don't completely fall into the feminist retelling trap of "this female villainess is actually a victim and never did anything wrong," they don't entirely avoid it either. Margery isn't a good person, but she is also arrayed against significantly more powerful forces than herself. This strand, too, is neglected - because we have to get to the pie shop, the Freemasons plot is largely left by the wayside. In the end, the most interesting parts of the story are restricted to hints and innuendo, while the main plot is dragged down by its ties to a story it really doesn't need to be connected to.

That said, there is a lot to enjoy here! The prose is engaging and propulsive, and there was never a moment when I wasn't anxious to know what happened next. I'm not sorry I read it, and it's entirely possible I'll read it again; but I wish it had been greater than the sum of its parts.

(And yeah, that last line - I'm not fussed, honestly. It's a penny dreadful, what do you expect? Once again, though, that suggestion of a storyline was far more interesting than the main thrust of the plot. Just lean in and go full Alan Moore! You know you want to!)

The only knowledge I had going in was having seen the movie. Ironically, it was the butcher shop part that interested me the least. I definitely think I missed some of the diabolical goings-on with the letters on the read through.
Thank you very much to Soho Press and NetGalley for the ARC!

A stellar and gruesome tale drawing inspiration from Mrs. Lovett, famous sidekick to Sweeney Todd; the demon barber of Fleet Street, this book was a spooky and dark treat. I thought this story driven narrative gave lovers of horrors characters to root for while making me hold my breath, worried about the next tragic thing that could happen at any moment to the titular main character. Written in letters, the reader is immersed in the gritty London streets of the late 1880s and told important plot details through the post, listings, news articles, and other documents that artfully decorated the pages. I really enjoyed this one! While I was worried that some elements felt left out from the original storyline that I am familiar with and cherish, I believe this adaptation (or prequel I suppose) stuck the landing and will be enjoyed by lovers of the horror/historical Ficiton genre!

I'll admit this book fell a little bit flat for me. The format was interesting, and despite having a few different sources of letters, we end up with a very one sided view of the story. I would have appreciated more sources to perhaps get a more well rounded view? Or something that would have added more depth to the very pasteurized image of the timid girl just trying to do her best that we see through Sister Catherine's writings.

The ending just felt... I don't know. Trite. Cute. It wasn't the "gotcha!" moment that I felt it was trying to be. Given how interesting the subject matter of this book is, I felt like it didn't quite rise to the occasion. I will still recommend it to readers who are a fan of the era, but it won't be something I'd wholeheartedly recommend to most readers.

This was incredibly layered and well done! I’m particularly impressed by how effective the “found documents” format worked, it truly enhanced the storytelling and added an air of mystery and intrigue!

I took off one star for the bizarre choice at the end that seems so tonally different than the rest and actively contradicts most of the novel. The majority of it is about the real life horror and brutality powerful mean wreak on vulnerable women and girls, and in no way glamorizes or represents it as titillating. We particularly connect to sex worker and identify the complex web of power and exploitation of brothels. To then wink and joke about her son becoming a man who slaughters sex workers is just so inappropriate and bizarre. It undercuts the power and beauty of the way the text represents and critiques sexual and reproductive violence by turning it into a punchline when Lovett’s son does it to women. I would sincerely suggest changing the tone of the final chapter or even just the last word.

I went into this book with a healthy knowledge of Mrs. Lovett from her original debut in the penny dreadful as well as the musical- and as fun of a story as this was it was quite hard to find the Mrs. Lovett in it.

I did enjoy her time at the doctor’s house, but I think the plot synopsis did it a disservice by telling us in advance she escapes from a mad doctor. If that was left for us to find out I think it would have been more compelling. The doctor’s house also felt quite rushed and I would have preferred to spend more time there instead of the lengthy pages of the brothel.

My biggest let down however was that in all the source material we know Mrs. Lovett to be an active participant in the Sweeney Todd story- at times almost making him continue for her own amusement and wishes. This Mrs. Lovett had none of the evil wit, she has had all of her agency taken from her. She only continues out of fear of Todd’s retaliation. That’s not the Mrs. Lovett we are all reading this book to know.

The last line of her dossier is the Mrs. Lovett we want- but now that line feels out of place from the shy timid Lovett you’ve created!

Still enjoyed the story- just read it as a random character not Mrs. Lovett

I went into this book with a healthy knowledge of Mrs. Lovett from her original debut in the penny dreadful as well as the musical- and as fun of a story as this was it was quite hard to find the Mrs. Lovett in it.

I did enjoy her time at the doctor’s house, but I think the plot synopsis did it a disservice by telling us in advance she escapes from a mad doctor. If that was left for us to find out I think it would have been more compelling. The doctor’s house also felt quite rushed and I would have preferred to spend more time there instead of the lengthy pages of the brothel.

My biggest let down however was that in all the source material we know Mrs. Lovett to be an active participant in the Sweeney Todd story- at times almost making him continue for her own amusement and wishes. This Mrs. Lovett had none of the evil wit, she has had all of her agency taken from her. She only continues out of fear of Todd’s retaliation. That’s not the Mrs. Lovett we are all reading this book to know.

The last line of her dossier is the Mrs. Lovett we want- but now that line feels out of place from the shy timid Lovett you’ve created!

Still enjoyed the story- just read it as a random character not Mrs. Lovett

Content Warnings: Medical Horror (Surgery, Lack of Consent, Sexual Assault, Forced Pregnancy, Abortion, Anatomical Specimens), Gore (Animal and Human), Misogyny, Cannibalism, Sexual Assault, Descriptions of Pregnancy, Child Birth, and Abortion, Descriptions of Butchery

I have mixed feelings about this book. I have to address the immediate elephant in the room which is: I went into it expecting a significant portion of the book to touch Mrs. Lovett's time with Sweeney Todd. What I got instead was the opposite; time in the pie shop was extremely limited. The time spent in that location, and how it was retold, I thought was good and enjoyed. I also quite liked seeing Mrs. Lovett as a young girl in the Butcher shop.

However, the rest of the book was very hit and miss for me. The elements I found intriguing (e.g., mystery in the doctor's house, mystery in the convent, Free Mason spin off cult) were either cleared up too soon, not threaded through consistently, or dropped. The majority of the time in the brothel was boring, which was unfortunate because I'm all about LGBTQ+ rep in fiction; it just didn't really add much to the overall story or character building, for me. I was also disappointed that we didn't get to learn much about Ms. Gibson, to whom all the correspondence in the novel is addressed.

My final dislike is perhaps more due to my personal taste: I hated everything involved with Mrs. Lovett's child. I hated the enduring of multiple sexual assaults and non-consensual abortions, everything surrounding her pregnancy because, and most of all that the son becomes a justification for her deeds in the pie shop. The medical horror is purely on me; I have a huge personal squick with anything related to pregnancy. The change in Mrs. Lovett's character I thought took away the appeal of her being a morally gray and active participant in Sweeney Todd's crimes.

At the same time, I kept reading this book all the way to the end, despite my critiques and personal dislikes. I love an epistolary novel with engrossing unreliable narrators as well as a good penny dreadful, and this book delivered both. In that vein, I'd recommend it to anyone who also likes that specific combination.