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.