The Bedlam Stacks

Quotes

Genre

• Historical Fiction
• Fantasy
• Magical Realism
• LGBTQ+
• Adventure
• Adult

Trigger Warnings

• Ableist language
• Racial slur
• Miscarriage
• Death of a friend
• Murder

*There may be spoilers in this review. I will try to avoid major spoilers but some need to be brought up to be discussed.

Summary

In 1859, ex–East India Company smuggler Merrick Tremayne is trapped at home in Cornwall with an injury that almost cost him his leg. When the India Office recruits him for an expedition to fetch quinine–essential for the treatment of malaria–from deep within Peru, he knows it’s a terrible idea; nearly every able-bodied expeditionary who’s made the attempt has died, and he can barely walk. But Merrick is eager to escape the strange events plaguing his family’s crumbling estate, so he sets off, against his better judgment, for the edge of the Amazon.

There he meets Raphael, a priest around whom the villagers spin unsettling stories of impossible disappearances, cursed woods, and living stone. Merrick must separate truth from fairy tale, and gradually he realizes that Raphael is the key to a legacy left by generations of Tremayne explorers before him, one which will prove more valuable than quinine, and far more dangerous.

Characters

• Merrick Tremayne -smuggler and gardener trying to find a new way to live after his injury
• Raphael – Priest in New Bethlehem full of mystery
• Charles Tremayne – Merrick’s older brother
• Clements Markham – Merrick’s friend from the military who wants Merrick to come with him to smuggle quinine from Peru
• Minna Markham – Clem’s wife
• Martel – Spaniard who controls who comes and goes in Peru
• Harry Tremayne – Merrick’s grandfather who spent time in New Bethlehem.

Setting

1859 Cornwall and Peru

Overview

This was a random name drop on a TikTok with too many books I had never even heard of. After reading this one though I plan on checking out the rest on that list.

It was nothing like what I thought it was going to be. I have really fallen out of reading summaries on books unless I haven’t heard of anything from anyone about it. So true to form, I plunged ahead and had no clue what the book was meant to be about. I was thinking something to do with an asylum, Bedlam you know how it goes, but what I got was much wilder than anything my brain came up with.

It is an adventure tale, or a love story, or a historical fiction. It is… a meandering not only of South America but of Merrick’s mind as well

I gotta say, I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Pros

This is one of the lovelier books that I have picked up lately. It has a wonderful way with imagery and feeling that really had my brain working in new ways. The sentence structure felt just to the left enough to actually make me pay attention to some of the oddities in the world and Merrick’s experiences. There was a good amount of work to be done by the reader and for me it was more engaging and interesting.

I love anything that breaks down cultures and people’s lifestyles. Getting to know the village of Bedlam and their quirks was one of my favorite parts of the story, especially when they were talking about the language of knots. That made my brain very happy.

I really liked the characters. They felt as magical as the world and yet as real as someone sitting next to you on a bus. It can come across as vague in some of the descriptions but I felt like we were seeing the world as Merrick does, people for people and not just their looks.

The magic realism caught me for a second. I wasn’t sure where we were going with it but I loved the elements the more the story played out. The clockwork pollen was a very loud image in my head.

Cons

Pacing is probably the thing that will throw off most readers. This is one I would recommend to people with the right tastes. It is a lovely tale but you have to be able to feel the beauty around you and want to find it in all the things around you. This story can crawl. There isn’t a lot of action, there isn’t a lot of momentum or inertia. It can make things really difficult for readers that need to be pulled by the story to get to the end.

On the same vein, there isn’t much plot wise. There is an overarching story, a motivation to keep characters moving in certain directions but it most certainly takes its time meandering and many of those motivations seem to jump all over the story.

Final Thoughts

I do think it is a particular flavor not everyone is going to enjoy the same. I can see many readers getting bogged down by the pace or by the ;ack of concrete descriptions in some areas.

If you like classic literature this might be more for you. There is a focus on theme and on the prose that makes me think of how works were written in different times. There are elements of fantasy that elevate the story that could throw off some classic readers but in the long run I think they fit rather well with the tale.

Me, personally, I loved it.

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