Thursday, July 3, 2025

Book Review | The Lady in the Cellar: Murder, Scandal and Insanity in Victorian Bloomsbury



Rating | ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Not having the answer is sometimes a fact of life. There's something about Victorian-era murders that are deeply fascinating to me. Maybe because the Victorians were super obsessed with murder themselves and it's interesting to be obsessed with people who are obsessed with murder.

Living in a boarding house in the Victorian era was not uncommon, and naturally there were varying degress of respectability associated with various homes. Some were well-kept, fully-staffed, and catered to this with a bit more money. Others, not so much.

Number 4 Euston Square in Bloomsbury was definitely the former. The home provided comfort and hospitality to many tenants over the years it was in operation, though one disappeared without a trace and what followed was an absolute chaotic series of events.

While tenants paid rent, something not included was coal to heat one's room. When a new resident was moving in, space needed to be cleared in the cellar to accompany the coal the gentleman brought for his stay. In that space was discovered the badly decomposed body of a former tenant, Matilda Hacker. She'd not been seen in two years, yet she'd never left the property. Clearly someone in the home had killed her, but who? One of the owners? An employee, or fellow resident? Yet even now, there is still no clear-cut answer. Given the clotheslines tied tightly around her neck, all that is certain is that she was murdered.

Matilda Hacker's life was as puzzling as her death. The wealthy heiress had never married and was in her sixties at the time of her death. She preferred to dress as a young girl desite her age (which is not a big deal now, but then it was seen as absolutely ridiculous). There is some conflicting information about her final years regarding her behavior and it is likely that some kind of mental illness was the root cause of either or both scenario being true. Matilda often used aliases and moved constantly around the city and country despite owning property, convinced that she was being stalked. She also was avoiding paying taxes on her land, so the aliases came in handy for avoiding the law as well as the supposed stalkers.

The shear amount of research that went into this book makes it worth the read. The author uncovered heaps of information about all of those involved, from those trying to solve the case to those who desperately wanted their roles to remain hidden. You will not be surprised by the policework in 1879, no dount if you are interested in this corner of the Victorian era, you've read plenty about Jack and what the constables were up against in trying to solve those murders. But the author details their work in such a way that you see their hard work and so badly want them to get their man (or woman).

The story is well-written and I feel like it really presented life as it was in the late 1870s. Readers are completely immersed in the Victorian world brought vividly to life, while attempting to figure out what happened to cause the death of Matilda Hacker.

Highly recommended.

Book Review | Into the Taylor-Verse: Taylor Swift's Song-Writing Eras



Rating | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

This would be a great gift for the Swiftie in your life, or the new listener who wants to know more about one of the greatest music icons of all time.

The book gives an overview of both her life and her work, accompanied by illustrations from each era.

Time and again, those who are not fans are dismissive of her song-writing, claiming all Taylor writes about are her exes. This could not be further from the truth, and that's what makes her so universally appealing. Are there numerous break-up songs? Of course. But what artist doesn't use their personal life to make music? Taylor touches on so many more topics than that though, and this book showcases her talent beautifully. From Debut through Midnights, Taylor captures the feelings of growing up, young adulthood, and the real world - and all the highs and lows that come with each stage of life she's experienced thus far.

Beyond a detailed dive into Taylor's skills as a songwriter, the author looks at her discography as a whole (except for Tortured Poets, which must have come out after the book went through final editing or went to print?), the showmanship and creativity she pours into her tours and live performances, and so much more.

I'm not sure I can truly describe how much Taylor's music has impacted me. Prior to the Eras Tour, I only owned Fearless, which came out in 2008. But Eleanor was a massive fan and begged me to really listen to Taylor. I resisted for months, but finally gave in, and nothing has been the same since then. The emotion that Taylor puts into all her work is absolutely captivating. She can have me in tears as I scream-sing a song that has not been applicable to my life in twenty years. But that is her gift. She taps into these deep wells of emotion and truly heals, long after the cuts have scabbed over but never gone away.

Through her music, we see Taylor's personal growth as well and her development as a songwriter and performer. Her stories are universal, and that's why her music evokes such powerful responses from fans; she is just like us.

In addition to looking at the music, the author also drops in other content that I enjoyed. There's a playlist of songs that are not about exes, mini-bios of her beloved cats, and why the number thirteen matters so much in the Taylor-verse.

This was a thorough journey through Taylor's career, calling attention to the themes that flow from song to song, album to album. Each era is given its time to shine, from her beginnings as the darling of country music (she won her first Grammy awards for only her second album, Fearless - Best Female Country Vocal Performance, Best Country Album, Best Country Song [White Horse], and Album of the Year), through her complete genre shift and the dizzying heights she achieved with 1989 (one of the greatest pop albums of all time - and what's crazy is that it isn't even her best album), to her "comback" after disappearing in the aftermath and of Kim and Kanye's bullshit and lies, to her surprise Covid albums, to where she is now, the undisputed icon she is today.

Highly, highly recommended.

Wednesday, July 2, 2025

NetGalley ARC | Win Lose Kill Die


I received a free digital ARC from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Rating | ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Morton Academy is not for the faint of heart. The students are highly competitive and high-achievers. They have been accepted to the elite school based on academic excellence and the pressure to stay on top is intense. But one by one, the best of the best are targeted and through this series of murders it becomes clear that someone is willing to eliminate their competition in order to come out on top. There are plenty of suspects - members of the 'Jewel and Bone' secret society, the charming new student, a teacher with a not-so-clean past, or the rumored cult that may or may not exist.

Our main character is Liz. At the end of the previous school year, she was injured in an accident and spent the summer trying to recover. As the students around her begin to die, she sticks closet to her group of friends, but wonders who is really trustworthy. Given her head injury, things are not always clear. I LOVE unreliable narrators.

I'm a total sucker for a good murder mystery set in any kind of boarding school, so I tend to hold these kinds of books to a higher standard, because I love them so much.

The author did a great job building up the suspicion of various characters. While there was not a lot of room for character development given how quickly things moved, I did not feel like the characters were cardboard or indistinguishable. They each had enough of a unique voice that it was easy to keep them straight.

The ending SEEMS like it comes out of nowhere, but if you pay attention to who is at every crime scene, you'll figure it out pretty quickly. I'm kind of embarassed it took two deaths and a rusty old nail for me to figure it out.

Sociopaths are fun.

Highly recommended!