This book is dark and twisted and something unexpected. If you like dark fiction this would be a great fit.

It's definitely not everyone's cup of tea, but I found The Butcher's Hook delightful. Delightfully weird, dark, and twisted that is-- but delightful none the less. It kept me reading long into the night, which is really all I can ask for in a book. I recommended it to a few of my coworkers (who also loved it) and would recommend it to my more discerning patrons.

A young Georgian girl rebels against the constraints of her time and class. Her father wishes her to be married off to a fop twice her age for business purposes. Anne, however, has other plans, and embarks on an affair with the butcher's boy that will take her into a decidedly dark path. A wicked and interesting read!

18th century Georgian teen Anne Jacobs blew my mind. I had no idea what The Butcher's Hook was going to be like , but I will never forget Anne's domestic predicament, her intellect, the intensity of first love and sexual awakening, and her dark tenacity. Janet Ellis has written a feminist manifesto that will shake readers to the core. A fantastic pick for book clubs and those wishing to explore a well written domestic historical thriller.

Curiosity is a dangerous thing—especially when it’s coupled with amorality as it is in Janet Ellis’s The Butcher’s Hook. Anne Jaccob is the oldest daughter of an overbearing father and a mother worn out from childbirth and miscarriage. She’s mostly been left to her own devices up until now. But now that she’s nineteen, her father decides that she’s old enough to marry a rich man. And this is where the mayhem begins.

Anne fell in lust as soon as she laid eyes on the family butcher’s apprentice, Fub. She makes up all kinds of stories to spend time with him at the shop while fending off the attentions of Mr. Onions, the man her father wants her to marry. For most of the book, I thought I was reading a romance novel with pretentions to being literary historical fiction. There is a ton of detail about mid-eighteenth century London where middle to upper class meets the lower to middle class. Mostly, it’s smells and filth.

What makes The Butcher’s Hook something else entirely is the fact that Anne is constantly learning while she makes time with Fub. She learned how to turn something living into something dead. Because of her sense of entitlement and lack of morality, Anne is not afraid to try those lessons out on something that’s not a cow or a pig. To be honest, I had no idea what I was in for when I started this book.

I know that some readers will have a problem with this book simply because Anne is so unlikeable. I didn’t. I’m okay with unlikeable characters as long as there’s something else to hold me in the story. Here, what kept me in the book was watching Anne twist between her lack of moral boundaries and the boundaries imposed on her by her father. No matter what she does, she just can’t seem to get free of the man. And because she can’t get free of Mr. Jaccob, she can’t get free of Mr. Onions. They’re too prominent to kill. Without their support, she’d be homeless and hungry. In spite of this, Anne is killing people who get in her way. I stuck around just to see what would happen.

I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley for review consideration. It will be released 10 January 2017.

Beautiful writing. I enjoyed the dark humor and the fact that not a single character was even remotely likable. The ending seemed somewhat thrown together quickly.

I received an e-ARC of this novel through NetGalley and Pegasus Books.

Set in London in 1763, this novel is a dark, dreary tale narrated by the main character, 19 year old Anne Jacob. This was a time in history when the position of women was held in low regard by society. They were not considered worthy of wasting an education on because it was widely believed there was no place in society where they could utilize the knowledge they acquired. Anne Jacob was lucky in the fact that she came from a moderately well-to-do household, not from great wealth but certainly comfortably situated, and her parents indulged her thirst for learning by allowing her to have a tutor. Granted, that tutor was only expected to spend time on the most basic of subjects, but Anne was such a willing student that they found themselves delving into far ranging ideas. Anne's life both within her family and with her tutor was a happy one until two disastrous events happened which changed each situation. In the case of her family life it was the death of her three year old brother. From that point on Anne seems to have become unhinged mentally and by the end of this novel the depravity to which she would stoop made me shudder.

I began reading this book with what I consider to be an open mind, but it didn't take long for me to see it was going to be a struggle for me to maintain my interest in continuing to read. Anne is such a selfish, self-centered individual and the novel moved from dreary and dismal and dark to twisted, macabre and chillingly unsettling. The only reason I continued to read was to see how far the author was willing to take this psychologically damaged character. If there had only been some spark of compassion or hope written into this character, I would have at least thought she was worth saving. As it is, the ambiguous ending could lead some to think this might not be the end of Anne Jacob's exploits. It is definitely the end of them for me.

WOW, this book went off the rails quickly, but in a good way. The main character is stubborn, but not in a good way. The only thing I can compare it to is The Crimson Petal and the White meets Natural Born Killers. It was not at all what I thought it would be!