Set in Victorian England, this historical fiction novel perfectly embraces the setting and mystery of its time-period. Filled with unique and interesting characters from beginning to end, Sarah Perry has written a beautiful, intelligent, and charming novel.
Newly widowed, Cora Seaborne is finding her stride again after the death of her domineering husband. Determined to escape the stuffy rules of London society, she takes her son and maid to the English countryside to pursue her studies as a budding naturalist. While tramping the marshes and collecting specimens she becomes fascinated with the local lore of the Essex Serpent, and the possibilities that a Paleolithic species could be resurfacing and prime for discovery. Pushed together with the local reverend in her pursuit of science and discovery, circumstances will lead to a magnetic and clandestine attraction that could ruin them both.
Reverend William Ransom is an unlikely clergyman, young and easy-going, he’s more likely to be assumed a farmer than a reverend. Living in the countryside of Essex with his wife and children, tending to his flock with a more practical and intelligent approach to life, he’s often dismayed and annoyed by his congregation’s flights of fancy and superstitions, especially when a local man drowns and it’s blamed on the mysterious Essex Serpent.
Dr. Luke Garrett is single-minded in his pursuit of knowledge and advancing medicine, especially surgery of the heart. Taciturn and churlish, he’s found himself unexpectedly mesmerized by Cora since tending her dying husband. Striking up an unlikely friendship with her and visiting the countryside as often as his practice allows just to see her. He’s dismayed as her letters at first just mentioned formally, The Reverend Ransom, but now are filled with the familiar, Will.
Perry strings the lives and experiences of these dissimilar characters together with letters and first-person storytelling to create an almost magical whole.
Perry, Sarah. The Essex Serpent. Mariner Books. 2017.
