Heart of Cruelty

Heart of Cruelty opens with our protagonist Jane digging her hands into a stinking pile of bones from the slaughterhouse. Her task is to grind down the bones to make bonemeal, as punishment for having offended the workhouse chaplain Reverend Glyde.

It’s a vivid scene thrusting the reader into the Birmingham slums in 1840. Jane, daughter of a lawyer, has fallen into abject poverty after being abandoned by the actor who seduced her, Edmond Verity.

Heart of Cruelty has many of the tropes of 19th century sensationalist novels, blending shocking themes with social realism. Jane has given birth to an illegitimate baby, who died within days. She is saved from a vicious beating outside the workhouse by the intervention of Coroner Dr William Doughty, who employs her to work as his housekeeper and to care for his sick wife, Harriet.

Living in the Doughty household has saved Jane — an educated woman and skilled pianist — from a dismal fate. But tension is growing. Harriet is descending further into addiction and madness, haunted by demons of past and present trauma. William is facing professional discredit, fuelled by Reverend Glyde, who is Harriet’s brother. Meanwhile, both Jane and William are fighting the increasing attraction between them.

It’s hard to say much more without spoilers, but Jane and William are in the thick of a maelstrom of evil. Can they emerge from all this unscathed?

There’s romance as a key element of this story, but there’s so much more to this than any mundane love story. Jane is a strong woman, desperate to assert her independence. She resists the temptation to become William’s lover not only for moral reasons or to avoid scandal, but because she knows how unreliable lust is and how fleeting romantic love. She’s been cast aside once and now wants only to be self sufficient. The desolate fates suffered by the other women in the workhouse show how helpless women are without financial independence, wholly at the mercy of the men who control their lives.

I love the fact that the love story between William and Jane is portrayed primarily from her very pragmatic perspective. She does not endow him with all the traits of the typical romantic hero. On the contrary, she readily acknowledges that the pull between them is mostly physical, and that even in this respect William lacks Edmond’s youthful good looks and charm.

Heart of Cruelty is very well written. The pacing is skilled, with intense scenes balanced by slower, domestic scenes where Jane goes about her work and reflects on what to do. The characters are well rounded and believable, from the vicious and sadistic Glyde to the frankly somewhat dull Dr Doughty. The language is descriptive but never overblown, so that you feel completely present in the narrative. And while 19th century sensationalist novels are more prudish (obviously) in their depictions of evil-doing, at no point did I feel any jarring anachronisms in language or actions to pull me out of the story into the present day.

To say that Heart of Cruelty is immersive is an understatement. Over the few days I took to read it, I was obsessed with it, totally involved. The moment I finished, I bought the next book in the series (I’m taking precious time away from reading it in order to write this review!)

In short, Heart of Cruelty is a cracking good read, totally recommended for fans of classic sensationalist novels and realistic historical fiction set in 19th century England.

Question for the author: is the name Glyde a nod to the evil Sir Percival Glyde in The Woman in White?

Thanks to Katherine Mezzacappa for bringing Heart of Cruelty to my attention. I’ll be reviewing her novel, The Maiden of Florence, very soon.

---

You might also like:

• Contemprorary historical fiction: Fyneshade | Kate Griffin
• Classic fiction: Novels by Mary Elizabeth Braddon

---