Dear book, I sorta liked you but didn't. You gave me gardening feels, like I enjoyed but won't do you again in the next five years or so. I don't know I'm a bit conflicted, perhaps I'll write a more coherent review soon, but for now let me give you an

(Review originally published on my blog, September 2014)I really don't like having to give negative reviews. They can be quite fun to write, but that doesn't make up for the time wasted reading a disappointing book, especially if, like me, you have a constantly expanding to-read list of several hundred potentially better others. Unfortunately, The Taxidermist's Daughter turned out to be another addition to 2014's growing batch of much-anticipated, but ultimately mediocre, new novels. (Funnily en...

I've been waiting for Kate to write an out-and-out Gothic thriller for years. This is it; dark, clever but also immensely readable, giving the lie to the critics' belief that intelligent fiction can't also be fun. And it's a love letter to the Fens, described here with a sure and delicate touch, in sound, scent and colour...

There are some books that are just magical and this is one of them. The author has done a magnificent job in creating a gothic novel with a strong sense of place and wonderful story telling. This book is so different from anything else I have read by this author and it is just spell binding. I was nervous about picking up a book that features taxidermy but it is done in such an interesting way that it posed no problems for me. I never came around to the concept that dead stuffed birds can be a

Jackdaws, magpies, crows, and more, I love birds from the Corvidae family, and they were the perfect Gothic inspiration for Kate Mosse's gruesome historical novel, THE TAXIDERMIST'S DAUGHTER. This dark mystery centers around Connie, the daughter of a taxidermist - she, too, is one - and her quest to solve the mystery of a young woman's murder. The story hooked me right away with its Poe-esque atmosphere. Chilling! The mystery itself was puzzling, twisty, and complex. Taxidermy give me the creeps...

''The ghosts of all whom death shall doom within the coming year, in pale procession walk the gloom, amid the silence drear.'' James Montgomery, 'The Vigil of St.Mark', 1813Our story starts in Sussex in 1912. It is the night before St.Mark's day, a night of spirits and shadows, when the living hide themselves to see the souls of the dead parading in the church yard. ''This is no place for the dead.'' But the souls are not dead yet. They are the images of those who will die during the com

Constantia (Connie) was twelve years old when she had a terrible accident, falling down the stairs and hitting her head on the marble tiles. She doesn't remember the accident nor anything in her life that happened before that, has just been told she almost died. Now 22 and unmarried she lives with her father, a once renowned Taxidermist in Fishbourne Marshes, in a dilapidated mansion called Blackthorn House. It is 1912, in Sussex and a young woman's body is found dead. This will set long thought...

Blackthorns are everywhere. They are haunting me. ‘TAXIDERMY: OR, THE ART OF COLLECTING, PREPARING, AND MOURNING OBJECTS OF NATURAL HISTORY’ I liked the Taxidermy facts that were thrown in there. Lit shit.I bought this shit because it was cheap. I didn’t really know what it was about. Only knew it was a gothic thriller/mystery. Kinda hoped they would taxidermy humans and not animals *I blame the movie Taxidermia for this* but we can’t always get what we want. I think I love this. The thing is...

A gothic tale set in Sussex, England with dark and sinister settings and characters. It is a story of revenge for past wrongs by powerful men. Connie, the main character, had a severe head injury when she was twelve so she does not have many memories of her childhood. Her father is a man who drinks to forget things in his past who was once well known as a stuffer of birds. Connie is the one who does most of the work on running the household and the taxidermy business. As Connie pieces together h...

I have been a fan of Kate Mosse for many years. Her novel Labyrinth sat unread on my shelf for a long time before I took the plunge and read it. I had avoided that huge tome for so long, it's historical fiction and I really didn't think that it would be my thing. I was completely hooked and everything else was left unattended whilst I feverishly read it. I was equally transfixed by the next two in the series; Sepulchre and Citadel. More recently, I read her collection of short stories; The Mistl...

Okay, so I have extremely mixed views about this book. It started off SO well, so incredibly atmospheric and with a wonderfully gothic undertone that had me gripped. The writing was spellbinding, and the story itself was really something that appealed to me - then something happened. I'm not sure what, but the story seemed to go off on another tangent that veered away from the tightly compressed story of before and went on and on without much consistancy. I think the story could've been at least...

A good old gothic murder mystery, a bit daft but beautifully written. The descriptions of the Sussex marshes, rain, mist and my much loved gothic gloom were so well described I felt I was there. It's a bit far fetched in the mystery department, lots of to-ing and fro-ing through mud, some likeable characters and some moustache twirling dastardly villains, set in 1912 but to me it felt more Victorian. A mixed bag but I enjoyed it, 4 stars.

I was seduced by the blurb and found it very appealing on purchase but upon reading, not for me!Too many other good books to read!

I absolutely adored the Langeudoc trilogy but was bitterly disappointed with The Winter Ghosts so I pre-ordered this with a degree of trepidation hoping that Kate had returned to her brilliant best; I had no need to worry and she has.The book is, as all her others are, beautifully written and wonderfully descriptive and very atmospheric. It's a brilliant Gothic psychological thriller with Connie, a wonderful and strong character, at the heart of the story. Connie has no memory of events leading

A really nicely paced and very well written gothic thriller from Kate Mosse. I have read the rest of Mosse's work and was suprised to find this book was very different. Both the story and style marks something quite new.The story , set in Edwardian England,centres around Connie and her gradual remembering of her life before a childhood accident while the past is catching up on quite nastily on most of the other characters around her. Taxidermy plays a big role in the plot without being boring, a...

Kate Mosse did a great job creating a chilling setting in The Taxidermist's Daughter. The nighttime gathering at the graveyard. The numerous hiding places in the marshes. The isolation caused by flooding during heavy rains. These all lent themselves to creating a spooky atmosphere just as well as any violins or string in a Hitchcock thriller. Mosse was gifted in her ability to paint a picture, especially with the details she used to describe the setting and the birds. I am squeamish when it come...