In the lineage of Margaret Atwood’s Alias Grace, The Savage Instinct is the chilling story of one woman’s struggle for her sanity, set against the backdrop of the arrest and trial of Mary Ann Cotton, England’s first female serial killer. England, 1873. Clara Blackstone has just been released after one year in a private asylum for the insane. Clara has two goals: to reunite with her husband, … reunite with her husband, Henry, and to never—ever—return to the asylum. As she enters Durham, Clara finds her carriage surrounded by a mob gathered to witness the imprisonment of Mary Ann Cotton—England’s first female serial killer—accused of poisoning nearly twenty people, including her husbands and children.
Clara soon finds the oppressive confinement of her marriage no less terrifying than the white-tiled walls of Hoxton. And as she grows increasingly suspicious of Henry’s intentions, her fascination with Cotton grows. Soon, Cotton is not just a notorious figure from the headlines, but an unlikely confidante, mentor—and perhaps accomplice—in Clara’s struggle to protect her money, her freedom and her life.
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Having suffered through the trauma of a stillbirth, Clara Blackstone is finally being released from the asylum her husband had committed her to. Joining her husband in his new home in Durham, where he has a new position, she quickly finds that her freedom is tenuous and her husband cold. A chance sighting of an infamous poisoner, Mary Ann Cotton, leads to obsession as she repeatedly visits her in prison.
Set in Victorian England, a time when women had no rights within marriage, this story explores ways in which women were endangered by a husband’s power and greed along with other women’s compliance and complicity. When all it took was two Doctor’s signatures and a woman could be consigned to an insane asylum for life.
Clara is traumatized after the delivery of her child, at the asylum, and then in her new home as her husband Henry forces her to take a sleeping draught each night. And under the influence of a senior professor, it is Henry’s mind that seems to be coming unhinged with the power he wields over Clara. As his intentions become clearer, Clara sinks farther under the influence of Mary Cotton.
Written in Clara’s voice, this is not altogether an easy read, but the early scenes hooked me in as her narration reflects the splintering of a mind subjected to torturous medical treatments. Conversely, the lessons she learned in the asylum see her attempting to hold everything, allowing conversations to go on about and around her or to be overheard that illustrated the thinking of the time but were maddening to read.
A provocative, possibly polarizing, psychological thriller that is propelled as much by the writing as the story. 3.5 stars.
This review refers to a temporary digital galley I voluntarily read through NetGalley, courtesy of the publisher. A positive review was not required and these are only my own, honest opinions.
— I wanted to like this book more than I did. I just found it a bit on the boring side. I also didn’t love Clara as a character or the ending. In fact, the ending very nearly made me throw my tablet across the room. However, I enjoyed learning more about Mary Ann Cotton.
**ARC Via NetGalley**
There is something so innately chilling about this haunting story. While part of it is based on the tellings of the historical facts of the female serial killer Mary Ann Cotton, who is said to have poisoned not only her 3 husbands, her mother, lover, and all but one child, totaling some say over 20 lives. Yes, this is a ghoulish and macabre tale from the beginning.
What I think is part of the darker history here, though by no means less real even if the characters are given fictitious names in this fictitious plot, is the treatment of women at the Time of the turn of century. It is a grim affair; one that is often over looked.
This book shines a blinding light to the horrors that women faced in a society where they were considered powerless and disposable. Where vision and drive were considered hysteria. Passions and lusts led to many a woman having a hysterectomy or worse. No longer beautiful or once a man had their fortune, many were confined forced to live their lives in asylums; cast side like they were nothing, while being treated with broken treatments and savage medicine.
That is the life of Clara. After the stillbirth of her child, she is sent to Bedlum by her husband. The broken person that returns is not the one he desires. Not understanding this new world after she has seen and felt the ugly harshness that befell her by husbands hands, Clara seeks guidance from an unlikely source. So behind the beginning of the end of many things as truths are revealed and lies come to light. Clara must decide what kind of woman she is to be. Will she allow herself to remain broken beneath the heel of her husband or will she have the strength to put herself back together again and become stronger for what she went through?
For all the horrors, imagined or real, I felt the voices of the woman who walked similar stories, cried similar tears, screamed similar cursed throughout the past at the injustices. It was a two fold story for me. My scientific mind appreciated that the advancements and shivered at the treatments. My bookworm mind loved the intrigue and the struggle of Clara. Overall I really enjoyed
** Thank you so much to the author and Inkshares for the opportunity to review this book **
Everybody Contemplates Murder At Some Time In Their Life!
We meet Clara Blackstone at the start of this book when she’s on her way to her grandmother in India who’s dying. Then, the story looks in a flashback to the events in the last 6 months that brought her here. After she suffered a breakdown following a stillbirth her husband locked her up in an asylum, first in the infamous Bedlam and later in a ‘modern’ private one. There, an enlightened doctor released her, much to her husband’s displeasure. He wants a meek and obedient wife that makes his will her own. In Durham she meets her husband’s new friends, the Buckley’s. The wife, Emma gets Clara interested in visiting female prisoners. She befriends the infamous child- and husband-killer Mary Ann Cotton and even becomes obsessed with her. It is a strange and unbalanced friendship where it’s questionable who’s helping and influencing who. In the same period, husband Henry makes it very clear that he wants to get rid of her and lock her up indefinitely.
This is a haunting, chilling and even disturbing story. And, apart from the (not all that) happy ending, all too realistic! So many women were locked up for such devious reasons as that their husbands or fathers were displeased with them. It is simply heart-breaking to know what our foremothers have endured and suffered.
Obviously, there are outdated opinions and social conventions mentioned that are simply infuriating and beyond belief. And we think that our men are paternalistic? Think again! Some of the opinions here are worse than an incel website, and those are gross! Wel, now I know where they originate! I pity every woman of that era. The false picture we get from TV series as ‘ the Murdock mysteries’ of clever, strong, articulate and even powerful women is so wrong! I’ m a big fan of that series, regardless.
From the first time that I met Henry, I disliked him for being condescending and belittling. Unfortunately, that was but the start of his disgusting antics. He turns out to be the real creep, his friend and tutor Buckley is just as bad. Even at that time, I can’t belief that his behaviour was considered appropriate or he would not try to hide it behind doctor talk and pseudo-science.
This book is very well researched and at the end there is a list of reading material for those who are interested in knowing more about Mary Ann and the evolution of psychiatric treatment in the last 150 years.
The descriptions are very vivid and not for the fainthearted; the inhuman treatment of patients (with or without disorders), the very scene of the hanging and the mindboggling outdated theories are all described very detailed.
I cannot decide whether Mrs. Cotton was guilty or not. Maybe for some of the crimes, but not for all of them. There was a lot of infant mortality at the period and many, if not most, children never reached the age of 5. Even in the 1960’s people still died from arsenic and lead poisoning brought on by wallpaper and lead piping. So, I agree with the author that she did not get a fair trial and was convicted by the media before her trial even started.
The friendship between both women can only exist because Clara feels a connection with her because of her own bad experiences in the asylum. When comparing prison and asylum in this story, I’s choose prison because there you’re released eventually (well most are) while those in an asylum where simply forgotten. There is a big class division between the 2 women and most often it is Mary Ann that gives the better advice. Most of her opinions are more like those we now support. What doesn’t mean that I can agree with murdering children, not even with murdering a bad husband. Although I can understand the murder of some of the latter, it is not for an individual to decide who can live and who not. But if you’re a captive, is it tolerated to kill your jailer?
This is as much a social study of the period as a criticism and I’m certain that the author does not support the nasty onions he writes about.
I received a free ARC from Netgalley and Inkshares and this is my honest, unbiased review of it.