3 & 1/2 stars. ( )

Okay confession- I have reached a point in my reading life that I do not have a high tolerance for anything I am unable to lose myself in, especially when fiction drags. I could not finish this novel.
This story takes place in the time of King Henry VIII, when women of the era (who had precious few rights from the start) had new fears creep in with the fog. Fears that wives could now be traded in for a newer model without the stigma delivered by the Catholic Church. The King had just decided HE was Pope. Not to even get started on the Black Death devastating Europe a few short years before. What a great setting! Should allow any tale a slip-n-slide to a suspenseful and gripping mystery, one you might even power through an a afternoon or two. Instead you become hyper-aware of plot device. Everything feels kind of chunky and bumpy and just plain unpolished. A key supporting character is named Meddybemps...a name I found myself unable to read without rereading three times at every mention. Maybe this just is not my cuppa, I tried for days to push myself through this story however i reached chapter 20 (out of 43) and realized I am watching law and order to avoid this book. Not exactly a healthy read for me and for those reasons I am out. This is one I will leave on the table, unfinished so that I might move on to a better read. Very disappointed, with such a setting I have never found a bad narrative until now. I would try to read again only if the structure of writing were to be to be seriously reworked, only because the setting and premise should make it effortless to spin a page turner. Needs work~ 2/5 stars ( )

London in the 1540s and Henry VIII is on the throne. The King has just dispatched his fifth wife and is courting his sixth. In the slums of Southwark people are scraping a living in the only ways they can. A merchant ship, The Cristofur, tries to dock but when the customs officials find dead bodies in the hold and the ship overrun with rats they place it in quarantine. Meanwhile a former muckraker Jolyn visits her friend Bianca in order to find relief from her pains. Bianca makes physics and rat poison so when Jolyn dies she becomes the prime suspect for murder. How is the death of Jolyn related to the Christofur, to the plague of rats currently growing in London and to the mysterious occupants of a former bawdy house?

The rats are a central motif in this story and the descriptions are very realistic and unpleasant. Beyond that though there is nothing to distinguish this book from the glut of mediocre historical mysteries. Bianca Goddard is a quirky enough protagonist and the characters are quite well described but the story didn't really engage. I was left asking to many questions about the holes in the plot. Having said that Lawrence has researched well and her sense of time and place is pretty good. ( )

Interesting and certainly shows what life outside the top levels of society was probably like in Tudor England. Not a cakewalk for sure. But I did appreciate the realistic depiction of how people really lived. ( )

3.5 stars...I thought this was a really good start for her first book. I enjoyed the actual story and like that it was set in the 1500s-Tudor era. However, there were way too many repeated phrases throughout the book and some of those could have been left out. I think as Lawrence grows as a writer though, she will improve and be a force to reckon with. Well done! Looking forward to the next book.... ( )