Anatomy
by Dana Schwartz
Dana Schwartz
Wednesday Books
320 pages
€ 18,50
My grading : 5/5 stars
The Synopsis
Edinburgh, 1817.
Hazel Sinnett is a lady who wants to be a surgeon more than she wants to marry.
Jack Currer is a resurrection man who’s just trying to survive in a city where it’s too easy to die.
When the two of them have a chance encounter outside the Edinburgh Anatomist’s Society, Hazel thinks nothing of it at first. But after she gets kicked out of renowned surgeon Dr. Beecham’s lectures for being the wrong gender, she realizes that her new acquaintance might be more helpful than she first thought. Because Hazel has made a deal with Dr. Beecham: if she can pass the medical examination on her own, the university will allow her to enroll. Without official lessons, though, Hazel will need more than just her books – she’ll need bodies to study, corpses to dissect.
Lucky that she’s made the acquaintance of someone who digs them up for a living, then.
But Jack has his own problems: strange men have been seen skulking around cemeteries, his friends are disappearing off the streets. Hazel and Jack work together to uncover the secrets buried not just in unmarked graves, but in the very heart of Edinburgh society.
bodysnatchers · gothic · scotland · romance · feminism · historical
My Opinion
Spoiler alert: gigantic crush!!!!
But first, a little background.
1817. Edinburgh. Hazel Sinnett is a young woman with a passion for anatomy and medicine. But to achieve her dream of becoming a surgeon, at a time when women of her standing are learning to smile and above all – above all – to keep their mouths shut, she takes risks, and enlists the help of Jack, a young “resurrectionist” who plunders graves at dusk.
I loved EVERYTHING about this novel. The gothic atmosphere is just incredible. The dark, macabre scenery of 19th-century Scotland, with its share of thrills and mysteries…
The writing, then, is really beautiful and very catchy (especially for translation). Even if at times I had to mentally shield my eyes from some of the sordid details of Hazel’s dissections, I found that the style carried the plot divinely well, itself packed with twists and suspense (I swear I read both volumes in two days I was so hooked!).
But above all, the most positive aspect of this duology (if I had to give just one) remains, in my opinion, the panoply of characters. Between Hazel, a young, talented (and bad-ass) anatomist struggling to practice in a man’s world, and Jack, the reductionist who feels everywhere too much, the chemistry works (Jack, please marry me). And the same goes for all the secondary characters, who are all wonderfully tied into the plot and all bring a little something to it (heart on Eliza and Charlotte) (not heart on Beecham). The dialogues are really top notch and the emotion is there more than once (especially in volume 2, yes I’m a Madeleine).
In short, a very, very big crush for this historical and feminist duology, a real page turner, fueled by a hint of romance, a hair of magic and lots of mystery. It rises very high in my best reads of the year!!!
Discover other book reviews :
About the Author
Tosca Noury is an author, podcaster and literary content creator. In 2021, she self-published her first poetry collection La force de vivre, followed a year later by De l’orage naît un soleil, published by Courrier du Livre. Immersed in books from the age of ten, she has been sharing her passion for writing and reading on social networks and in her podcast Lit Thé Ratures since 2016.