I tried to get into this book and gave it quite a good go. However I found the whole beginning too long winded without seemingly much happening so sadly it’s not one for me.

The Wicked Cometh is Laura Carlin’s debut novel.

The title of this book comes from Proverbs XVIII, 3: When the wicked cometh, then cometh also contempt, and with ignominy reproach.

The opening chapter sets the scene as The Morning Herald reports on the growing numbers of missing people in London in September 1831. So, you know straight away that this is a tale of wickedness and evil. It begins well, setting the scene with detailed descriptive writing full of vivid imagery, evoking the sights, smells, and sounds of life in the darkest and foulest corners of London in the 1830s.

It’s narrated in the present tense by Hester White, a young woman of eighteen. She grew up in a parsonage in Lincolnshire but she was orphaned at the age of 12 and went to live in London with Jacob, formerly her father’s gardener, and his wife Meg in a slum dwelling, just one room with a brick and dirt floor. I liked Hester, who originally came from a reasonably well-off family and was educated. She lives in hope of leaving London and escaping from her miserable life.

A way out presents itself when she is knocked down and injured by Dr Calder Brock’s carriage and whisked away to stay at his family’s country house, Waterford Hall near Stratford. Calder intends to use her as an experiment, to build up her physical health, and to give her the chance of improving her life he persuades his sister Rebekah to educate her. He wishes to prove that even those from the gutter can be educated and Hester exaggerates her ignorance in order to escape being sent to the London Society for the Suppression of Mendicity, a place of shame feared by the poor. Known as the ‘Dicity’ it was one step on the downward path either to transportation in the hulks or to the poorhouse.

So far, so good but the first part of the book moves very slowly and my attention began to wander as I thought the wicked were a long time in coming. But come they did in abundance in the latter part of the book and as the relationship between Hester and Rebekah develops they begin to uncover the sinister secrets of what is behind the mystery of the missing people. And it is a dark, gruesome and grim secret.

Overall, I’m rather torn about this book – parts of it I really enjoyed, even though it’s written in the present tense, which I don’t like. The characters are well-drawn and the settings are superb, but the slow pace failed to provide enough tension especially in the middle section. The suspense and drama increased rapidly towards the end, but the final twist seemed contrived and not very convincing. But I can see from Goodreads that other readers enjoyed this book far more than I did.

My thanks to the publishers for a review copy via NetGalley.

would like to thank netgalley and the publisher for letting me read this amazing book

dont let the cover put you off this atmospheric book, based in and around london also during the jack the ripperish days...maybe even a bit before..with horse and carriages and when men were men and woman were just possessions, and along comes this amazing story that you just cant put down

how the author manages to keep the story rolling along with many twists and turns to the final outcome is amazing and what a shocking story it was to be, so gruesome in the discovery as you turn each page...it just got better and better

this is an author to keep an eye on...

A richly textured, atmospheric novel set in England in the early 1800's, this has the plotting and tone of Dickens meets Jane Eyre with a dash of Sarah Waters thrown in.

Tremendously entertaining and properly melodramatic in a Victorian sort of way, this book had me gripped to the end.

The cover is also one of the most gorgeous things I've seen - worth framing.

What a fantastic first novel by Laura. A really enjoyable dark, scary and descriptive story involving the seedier side of London in the 1800’s. I loved it.

An amazing book that nearly broke my heart. There are so many twists and turns that you would never expect, and a thrilling conclusion that you never would have guessed.
It's great to see a female Victorian detective couple as I've not heard of a book like it before.
Definitely a book to keep you guessing.

While it does take a few chapters for The Wicked Cometh to get going, once it does, it picks up pace at a decent rate. The romance is well-measured, and the mystery is deeply engaging.

Laura Carlin is like a cross between Sarah Waters and Charles Dickens, complete with unspoken family secrets and shady underworld figures.

I loved this book so much! The features of lesbian romance, historical fiction, mystery and elements of horror were fantastic. I whizzed through it and fell in love with Hester and Rebekah almost immediately. I really liked how their connection was written and I'd love another book feature my two new favourite Victorian lesbians.

This is a really accomplished work; pacy and heady, and crying out for a TV adaptation. Laura Carlin’s characterisation is vivid and precise- she really gets under the skin of Hester and Rebekah. It pays tribute to its influences- Dickens, Sarah Waters- without parody or emulation. If anything, there’s a sense that Laura Carlin doesn’t realise how skilful her writing is. I sense that there’s even more to come from this talented author.

I enjoyed this book - the atmosphere of the time,1830s, particularly of London was captured. I thought the characters believable and the story only ad one or two silly flaws. If I had one real concern it was with the title….The Wicked Cometh suggests something so not this story.
The tale of missing people is chilling and even more so when one finds out what is happening to them The book evolves around Hester White ,made orphan on her father's death she experiences life at the lowest level but after a collision with a Doctor's carriage her life slowly begins to improve. She forms a loving friendship with the Doctor's sister and together they investigate where the missing persons are going.

A very good read.

I’d heard only good things about The Wicked Cometh, and then when I saw the beautiful cover I knew this was a book I needed! And it did not disappoint. This is a beautifully written mystery novel set in grimy Dickensian 1830s London. It delves into a world of murder and grave robbing so rife in that era while also being a love story for two lost soles. The descriptions are so detailed you can’t help but be in that time period. Although I could have done without some of the really gruesome descriptions if I’m honest! I found my self second guessing everything and everyone apart from Hester and Rebekah - two brilliant heroines that I rooted for from page one. Here’s hoping book two is on its way soon...

In the dark streets of early 19th-century Holborn, people are disappearing. Men, women and children vanish on their way home from work or after a pint in the pub. As the smogs thicken in the narrow streets, orphaned Hester White studies the handbills pasted up on the dank walls, begging for news of lost loved ones. It's a bleak time to be poor in London and, when Hester suffers an accident near Smithfield Market, and is swept off for recuperation in the house of a wealthy surgeon, she thinks that she has escaped the dark belly of the underworld once and for all. Little does she know that she is only being drawn deeper into danger. A tale of Gothic threat and forbidden love, this novel reads like a cross between Sarah Waters and Grand Guignol.

Born and bred in a quiet Lincolnshire village, Hester has become used to her new home: a bleak and chilly cellar in the bowels of London, where she lives with her dead parents' former gardener and his wife. Pickled by gin and embittered by circumstance, her 'Uncle' Jacob has fallen into bad company, but his wife Meg strives to protect Hester from the vicissitudes of his temper. Hester herself dreams of a better life, where she can use her bright mind and education, but these dreams can come true in the most unexpected way. While waiting at Smithfield in the hope of meeting a distant relative, she is hit by a carriage. The occupant is Calder Brock, a dynamic, handsome young man with medical training, who sweeps her off to his townhouse - and then to his country estate at Waterford - for recuperation. Hester warms to Calder's friendliness, but at Waterford she is put in the care of his bluestocking sister Rebekah. Yet, as time goes on, formidable Rebekah proves to be kinder and more admirable than Hester had ever dared to hope.

It looks as though our heroine has fallen on her feet, and Hester hopes her new connections might lead to a better future. But all is not well in the Brock household. Calder's spendthrift uncle Septimus broods in the shadows like an old spider; there are unexplained disappearances among the staff; and, at the heart of all of it, stands Rebekah: noble, fierce, wonderful Rebekah, with whom Hester falls rapidly - hopelessly - inevitably - in love. But her turbulent emotions are further unsettled when she overhears Rebekah speaking dismissively of her to a visitor, followed by the appearance of an anonymous note, pushed under Hester's door, warning her to leave if she values her life. And so she flees back into the seething pit of London poverty, only to realise that she is now bound to the Brock family and will never truly be free.

Carlin's story is a colourful pastiche of the Victorian novel, stuffed with highly-coloured prose, melodrama and coincidences that stretch one's suspension of disbelief. She writes with flair, her present-tense first-person narrative giving the novel a momentum that keeps it bowling merrily along. Emotions are magnified; there's enough intrigue, murder and general skulduggery to keep a London police chief busy for a year. It is certainly an extremely readable book. But it feels very much like part of a genre: there are moments, for example, where it feels like an overly close cousin to Fingersmith. Perhaps it felt so familiar because I've read too much Sarah Walters with a side order of Penny Dreadful and a dash of Dickens. (Carlin's names feel particularly Dickensian, especially that of the horrible Frederick Blister.) 

Nevertheless, I'd stress that it is all done well, and with a sensitive ear to the slang and cadence of the time; so if you fancy a bit of glooming Victorian drama, this could well be just the ticket. It was just a little too highly seasoned for my taste. That isn't to take away from Carlin's abilities as a writer: her prose is so enjoyably fluid that I'll be interested to see where she takes her talents next.

For the review, please see my blog (it will be published on 23 January 2018) at this link:
https://theidlewoman.net/2018/01/23/the-wicked-cometh-laura-carlin

Thanks to Net Galley & Hodder &Stoughton for an ARC of this book in exchange for a review.
A historical novel set in 1831 in dark shadowy London, the streets are dirty, there is much poverty and where some unsavoury characters hang out. The story is about Hester White, her parents both die when she is young and she has been living with her parents gardener and his wife. Hester gets knocked down by a carriage, Calder Brock who is the owner of the carriage is a physician, he takes Hester to his family country home, resets her leg and sets in motion a train of events
The story is told I very discriptively from Hester’s point of view, it is quite dark and disturbing in places, there are many twists to the story and there is also love.
It’s a slow read, not my usual type of book but I kept reading.

Classy historical fiction at its best.
Set amount the Victorian underclass where life is cheap and poverty is common.
The story surrounds HesterWhite who although a clergyman's daughter educated as a child finds herself scrapping a living in the squalor of the east end..
The story is both a mystery and a love story beautifully written. Right from the first page the reader is drawn in. Nothing is predicable not even the ending.
Five stars all the way.

This is historical fiction at its best. I was gripped by this book the whole way through. The writing is brilliant. Everything is described really well. I could imagine London. I could visualise the poverty and the run down housing and imagine the stench of the streets. The story tells of some of the more gruesome crimes in this period in history. Every detail has obviously been well researched. Hester's story is well put together and I wanted her to have a happy life. There is a lot of detail in this book. I really like historical novels that can make you feel part of history and engage you with really interesting characters. This book definitely does that.

On a dark winter night, a book that promised to draw me back into the 19th century, into a story of family secrets and terrible crimes, called to me.

It began with a newspaper report.

<i>‘This newspaper has taken note that the past month has been remarkable for the prevalence of cases where men, women and children are declared missing. Scarcely a week passes without the occurrence of an incident of this type’

The Morning Herald, Tuesday 13 September 1831</i>

And then it told me the story of Hester White.

Hester was a bright young woman who had very bad luck. Her childhood home had been a country parsonage, and she had been a much loved only child, but when her parents died, one after the other, she found herself alone in the world with no family to claim her. The elderly couple who had been the family’s servants took her in, hoping that the new parson would employ them and help the child. He did neither, and so they took her with them when they set out to look for work.

They struggled, they found themselves living hand to mouth in a London slum, and Hester learned some very hard lessons.

The writing was wonderful, I was very taken with Hester, and I was happy to follow her as the story unfolded.

It was maybe because she was worried about one of those missing persons that she didn’t look where she was going and was crushed by a gentleman’s carriage. She was badly injured, but she was lucky because that gentleman took her home in her carriage, he made sure that she had all of the care and attention that she needed, and then he made her extraordinary proposal. He wanted her to stay, and to be educated by his sister; because he was a social reformer and he wanted to prove that slum dwellers could be educated, that they could better themselves …

Hester seized the chance of a new life, but things went terribly wrong, she received a warning and she had to flee. She found though that she couldn’t go back and that she couldn’t let go of the new life she had been promised.

I understood why she acted as she did, why she felt as she did, and I loved her voice as she told her story.

I was interested in the relationships I saw, and with the relationships that were growing, with people she knew in London, with the servants who looked after her at Brock House, and with the Brock family and the people around them. There was one person in particular, a relationship that was uncertain at first but became firmer and stronger.

I loved the way that the intrigue had developed. The Brock family relationships were strained and it was clear that there were dark secrets. Two of their servants were missing, as well as the missing Londoners, and it was by no means certain that Hester was safer there than she had been on the streets.

I wish that I could say that the playing out of the story was as good as the setting up, but I can’t.

It’s difficult to say why without saying too much, but there was a change of direction and it was too melodramatic and too far fetched for me, and the characters and relationships were compromised for the sake of the plot.

There were times when questions should have been asked, but they weren’t, because the plot was rushing forward to the finish.

It wasn’t entirely wrong, but it wasn’t right, and I couldn’t help thinking that the author was trying to do too much in one book and that there wasn’t the space to develop all of the different aspects of the story.

I loved her writing, I loved her ideas, but the book as a whole didn’t quite work.

The ending was infuriating. A door was very firmly closed, and then it was forced open again when it shouldn’t have been. I had thought the conclusion that I wanted couldn’t be, and just as I had accepted that I found that it had happened after all. It was right but it was wrong!

I can believe that a different kind of reader would love the whole of this book.

I can’t, but I found enough to admire in this book to be interested in seeing what its author does next.

Starting in London in 1830, we are introduced to Hester White, told about her life and her reasons for being where she is.  When she is involved in an accident and taken in by wealthy Brock family she thinks she may be on the  up.  What starts as an amiable situation takes a turn for the worse and we are taken into a deep, dark evilly twisted world set in the murky gloomy depths of London backstreets.

This is a historical fiction that from the outset feels right.   The descriptions given build up a vivid picture of the murky, dark slums and backstreets of London as well as the lavish and elaborate villas and large country houses of the wealthier London.  The characters have a mix of the flamboyant, the dodgy, rich and poor, honest and just down right nasty.  The plot leads you down deep, dark alleys and along bright well lit streets as we are gradually taken further in the story and discover the depths some people will go to for the sake of their career and reputation.  I did feel it took me a little while for the book to really grab my attention, but gradually I could feel myself getting caught up in it, I did feel some passages were a little long, but the descriptions have been done well.  But this I think is another book where I am greedy to read what happens next, I must be more patient.  I really liked the character descriptions in this story, they were a good mixed bag of traits and memorable little details.

This is a book I would recommend to readers of historical mystery books, set in 1800's London with two female sleuthing leading ladies uncovering a dark and twisted puzzle. I would like to thank Hodder & Stoughton and NetGalley for my eARC of this book.  My views are my own and are unbiased.

When clergyman's daughter, Hester White is orphaned she is taken in by her parents' gardener and his wife. However, the couple struggle to find another position and sink ever deeper into the mire of poverty. At 17, Hester is scraping a living with them in a clay-floored room in East London.

It is 1831 and fear stalks the streets as people go missing and are never heard from again. A cousin of Hester's, whom she had hoped would help her rise out of her wretchedness, disappears along with her friend Annie.

When Hester is run over by a carriage, the doctor who owns it takes her in to treat her damaged leg. Calder Brock is an amiable gentleman and allows her to stay in his London home until she is well. After that, he packs her off to his Uncle Septimus's country residence at Waterford Hall He arranges for his sister Rebekah to teach Hester in an experiement to prove the lower orders can learn. Hester has already been educated up to the time when her parents died but pretends she is untutored in order to remain at Waterford She discovers that two maids have disappeared from the household and that Rebekah is looking into their disappearance.

She becomes fond of Rebekah and allows herself to believe Rebekah has feelings for her too. When Hester overhears a conversation about sending her to the "'dicity" - the Mendicity Society, who will likely ship her to Australia - she runs away.

Back in London things turn very dark. Hester is pursued by two rough-looking men and is fearful for her life. She manages to hook up with Rebekah again, and the pair investigate the various disappearances. The plot leads through various byways and seeming coincidences and convolutions. The New Metropolitan Police force is involved but, of course, it is the women themselves who hunt out the baddies.

There is a major coincidence in the plot but if that is overlooked then this is a good read. The writing is by turns lyrical and gruesome, sometimes conveying the poetry of the natural world and sometimes the degradation of poverty and cruelty. The relationship between Hester and Rebekah is conveyed with great sensitivity.

I’ve been longing for a good historical crime thriller ever since I finished David Mark’s remarkable The Zealot’s Bones, so I was delighted when the rich cover art of The Wicked Cometh reached out to me with its siren call.

It is 1831 and our narrator and protagonist is 18 year old Hester White. Hester grew up with kindly parents in a parsonage in the Lincolnshire Wolds where she was much loved. But her mother died in childbirth and her father succumbed to typhoid fever less than six months later, when Hester was only 11.

The Parsonage reverts back to the Church and Hester has nowhere to go but thankfully, the gardener Jacob and his wife Meg take her in and she moves back to London with them. Now Hester is 18 and the London about which her father told her grand tales is distinctly not the London she is living in with the people she calls her aunt and uncle.

Though Meg and Jacob fared alright for a while, they have now fallen on hard times and they now live amidst squalor and disease in the dark black alleyways of London where they have nothing to be robbed of and no-one to rob them, because this is where the robbers live.

Jacob is a drunk and a womaniser and has lately been looking at Hester in a way that she knows bodes no good. Meg is struggling to get by but every day she has fresh bruises from Jacob’s return home and she has little comfort to offer Hester, who earns pennies from manuscript copying, because at least in her early years she had the benefits of being well educated.

Laura Carlin paints a vivid and picture of poverty squalor and the unsavoury characters that inhabit the streets of the London she lives in. You can smell the streets as Hester describes them, redolent with the pungent aroma of bodies, fetid water and sickness.

Carlin’s writing is Dickensian in its characterisation and narration and her writing conveys a rich and vivid picture of the dodgers and murderers with whom she shares the streets.

Laura knows only too well that the papers have been full of people going missing, for she has been going every day to Smithfield to try and find a distant cousin, Edward who is a drover and who her aunt Meg says she has persuaded to take her and find her work in a dairy house since she can add and subtract as well as read.

But Edward is not to be found and Hester’s hopes are sinking fast when she is run down by a recklessly driven carriage and her leg is badly injured. Fortunately the passenger, Calder Brock, is both kindly and a doctor, and he brings her to his home and sees to her injuries, insisting she stay until she is recovered. When she is feeling better he tells her that, if she wishes, she can come with him to his country home where he has arranged for his sister Rebekah to begin Hester’s education, for he believes her to be an illiterate street child.

Thus we begin Hester’s introduction into the world of the Brocks, who are not at all what they seem to be.

Despite difficult beginnings, Hester and Rebekah strike up a friendship and when Hester learns that Rebekah is concerned about the disappearance of two of the house maids, she finds that that together they can uncover more secrets than either could alone.

Richly evocative, filled with delightful descriptions and dark deeds this is a story that encompasses murder, mystery and love. You can imagine it being played out in one of Dickens’ Penny Dreadfuls, only with a touch of Sarah Waters thrown in.

It is good to see such spirited women being in the forefront of solving the crimes that they encounter, and indeed it is largely women that are to the fore throughout the book.

In true Dickensian fashion, this is a tale told at a leisurely pace with numerous twists and a prolonged and slightly outrageous ending, but this is in keeping with the whole spirit of the novel.

I really enjoyed it.

I requested this book so long ago via Netgalley but I have been receiving so many physical arcs (I'm not complaining) that my netgalley books have been neglected but I'm trying to catch up with my Netgalley reading and reviews, starting with The Wicked Cometh. I adore the cover so I might have to buy a physical copy!

It's a historical fiction novel partly set in the grimy backstreets of London in the 1800's and it's also partly set in a grand house in the country - both of those settings tick my reading preferences boxes. We follow Hester, a teenage girl living in poverty after a series of tragedies that have taken her away from her rural, idilic upbringing. Her fate turns around after an unfortunate encounter after which she meets the intriguing Rebekah Brock.

The novel is filled with vivid descriptions of the poverty stricken areas of London at the time, how the wealthier in society live and there are also more than a few unusual and worrying disappearances. I adored the writing style as it was rich but concise and extremely quick to read, so much so that I managed to read 66% of the e-book in one day! I also loved the character of Hester and Rebekah as well as their somewhat tension filled relationship which possibly turns into something more...

I loved the twists and turns as well as the LGBT and the Burke/Hare and slightly Frankenstein vibes. I'd definitely recommend it if you like slightly gothic historical mysteries with LGBT, atmospheric and mysterious elements.