With its richly imagined Georgian London setting, The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock is a cracking historical novel, with a twinge of the surreal, about passion and obsession, dreams and reality. Imogen Hermes Gowar may be a first-time author, but she has a distinctive voice so assured and so readable that she could be a veteran. The novel immerses you in a world in a way that reminds me of Susanna Clarke’s Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell ... The story is by turns intriguing, touching, funny, sad and heartwarming. It will make you laugh and it may make you cry. Mostly, though, the cast of endlessly engaging characters will keep you turning the pages until you get to the wholly satisfying ending.
There are deep currents roiling here, but the book takes its time setting them in motion. On the whole, investment by the reader is amply repaid. The author swims like a fish in Georgian cant and vocabulary. She has worked in museums and looks perceptively and attentively at objects, as well as exploring the line between sham and showmanship, sincerity and sensationalism, promoting and pimping ... There is much to chew on here, and much to savour, presented with wit and showmanship. Would that showmanship were a gender-neutral word, though, because all the elan of this book is female, from the madams running their girls, to the book’s most obvious literary forebear, Angela Carter’s Nights at the Circus. Imogen Hermes Gowar delights in the feminine fakery of mermaids, but as a writer she is the real deal.
Leisurely told and leavened with a knowing wit, Gowar’s debut brims with colorful period vernacular and delicious phrasings: one woman is 'built like an armchair, more upholstered than clothed;' another has a 'mouth like low tide.' Concerned with the issue of women’s freedom, Gowar offers a panoramic view of Georgian society, from its coffeehouses and street life to class distinctions and multicultural populace. Recommended for fans of Jessie Burton’s The Miniaturist (2014), this is a sumptuous historical feast.
...this is an entrancing novel that grasps the reader from the very beginning ... Gowar’s ear for dialogue is pitch-perfect, rendering delightful and credible late 18th-century conversation. The book is also very funny at times, full of engaging, thriving characters, that the reader connects to and does not wish the book to finish, a mark indeed of a very good tale, as we wish to linger a little longer in the company of these delightful characters.
Lively characters and a strong sense of time and place make this historical novel a rich delight ... Author Imogen Hermes Gowar displays an unflinching eye for the economic calculations permeating a culture in which everything from human flesh to mermaids is monetized ... It’s hard to believe that this brilliant and sure-footed work is a debut novel. Gowar’s feel for the spirit of the period is spot on ... a superb historical novel ... it richly rewards any reader willing to enter its world.
Gowar’s mermaid is this vividly realistic novel’s touch of magic realism, and its genuineness is teasingly ambiguous ... One of the delights of this knowingly preposterous story is the dialectic it constructs between the real and the fantastic. Its period details — de rigueur in historical novels — dutifully create the ambience of a different time and place for tourist readers, and do so beautifully ... Other recurring themes in this splendid novel, which was a best seller in Britain, are handled with skill and broaden its scope.
... fascinating ... This novel's world is as richly detailed as the dresses that Angelica dolls herself up in, its events at once fantastic and believable, making for a world-class yarn.
Gowar’s debut is rich in detail, with a plot that unfolds like a luxurious carriage ride through the country. Though the story is set in the 1780s, during the reign of King George III, the novel calls to mind 19th-century masters like Dickens and Eliot, who relished the way character can drive and reverse plot ... Behind the window trimmings of Gowar’s epic romance lies an astute novel about class, race, and fate that will delight fans of Sarah Perry’s The Essex Serpent and Sarah Hall’s The Electric Michelangelo. An ambitious debut with enough romance, intrigue, and social climbing to fill a mermaid’s grotto to the brim.
Gowar has a marvelous gift for the felicitous phrase and for Dickensian characters and excels in astute social commentary ... This is, indeed, a kind of fairy tale, one whose splendid combination of myth and reality testifies to Gowar’s imagination and talent.
