Title: Not your usual "historical novel"
Review: This is a terrific novel,and not only because it has a gripping plot (which it does); it has that rare quality which I can only, for lack of a better word, call world-creation. A great deal of historical fiction, however painstakingly researched, reminds one more than anything of *other* historical fiction. Holman's book doesn't: it gives you a sense of place, a sense of things happening -- with a kind of doomed intensity -- in that place, which seems completely original. I've done enough reading in the area to know that this book is very accurate about its historical "sources" (body snatching, the cholera epidemic in the area). But what I loved about the book was how little that mattered -- just how caught up I was in the world the writer created.I'm saying too much: this is a great read!
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