London, 1668. The Great Fire is an ashen memory, and the city is clawing back to life. Lucy North is just trying to stay afloat. Her father is dead, the debts are a noose, and her mother is desperate. Marriage is the only currency left. Thomas Ashwell, a young apothecary with a soft voice, seems like a reprieve. Then comes the fall. A head injury. The wedding bells dissolve into a medicinal fog. Lucy is confined to a room that feels like a cage, haunted by a voice in her head that isn't hers. It is a psychological breakdown in a time before we had a name for it.

Giles skips the romanticized noise. This is about walls closing in. Lucy’s journey is a calculated stripping of her agency. Thomas is a complicated figure; a doting protector whose "cures" only serve to cloud the truth. The tension lies in the ambiguity of care. Is Lucy being saved, or is she being buried alive in a narrative rewritten by men? The book refuses to provide a comfortable exit.

The themes feel jagged and modern. We call it gaslighting now; in 1668, it was just the social architecture of being a woman. The loss of self is a universal horror. Giles captures that specific dread of having your own reality denied by the person holding the medicine spoon. It is a reminder that the most dangerous terrain isn't a dark alley in London, but a quiet bedroom where your word carries no weight.

The prose is lean. The pacing mirrors Lucy’s vertigo, moving from sharp desperation to a warped, hallucinatory state. It is a deliberate choice that forces you to share her disorientation. Some might find the feverish sequences a bit dense, but they serve the central question of trust. This is a cold, intellectual thriller that happens to be wearing a corset, but the bones underneath are raw and real.

It left a mark. No cheap sentimentality here, just a lingering unease. The "stranger" in Lucy's head is the hook that keeps the reader off-balance until the final page. It is a solid, jagged piece of historical fiction that refuses to play nice. A reminder that a quiet room with a man who thinks he knows what's best for you can be the deadliest trap of all.

A glimpse into life in the 17th Century. Not an easy time and our characters all trying to make the most of a hard life and avoid the gallows. Some of the goings on seem truly shocking - did they really cook puppies and indulge in cannibalism from those poor unfortunates who didn’t avoid the hangman!? A sobering thought.
We encounter the great stink of London and the Great Fire as well. What a dreadful time that must have been but it all becomes part of the cosmopolitan life going on in this tale. It’s a captivating story and just a bit different. I found each character really intriguing. They all had a fascinating part to play and some more so than others.
If you enjoy historical tales then this is definitely one for you.

This book is split into three sections and I definitely preferred the first and third when it was told from the main protagonist. I understand why they kept the second part in because it added to the mystery and eventual ending. It was interesting to find out about history of London after the great fire and extremes the medical people went to to cut maladies. A truly great feminist work

Thank you to The Pan Macmillan Marketing Team for sending me an advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

The blurb: “The plague has passed, the fire has cooled, and Lucy North is in desperate need of a husband . . . From the acclaimed author of Mere comes a thrilling new tale of medicine, marriage and madness set in seventeenth-century London.

London, 1668. Though the streets hum with promise following the restoration of the crown, Lucy North is trapped. Her father's recent death has left her mother saddled with debts she cannot pay. Lucy must marry the first man willing to take her without a dowry.

So when she meets Thomas Ashwell, a young and charming apothecary, Lucy quickly identifies an attractive route out. She falls in love easily, and when Thomas proposes she believes her future is finally secured.

But when Lucy falls and injures her head during their wedding party, things start to warp. Confined to her bedroom her dreams refuse to leave her at daybreak, and the voice in her head no longer sounds like her own. As Thomas plies her with tinctures and cures, a creeping fear takes root: Has this marriage saved her? Or will it bring about her end?”

This is the second book I have read by this author and I enjoyed it immensely. without giving anything away, it is a very different novel and one which I have thought about often since I finished reading it. The writing style really suits the time in which the book was set which makes it feel really authentic. The characters are believable and I became really invested in Lucy and her outcome. There are some unexpected twists I never saw coming. This book gave me feelings of claustrophobia, probably because in the 1600’s women had little control over their lives or destines. Overall, I would say this is another great book by Danielle Giles.

Review posted on Goodreads, Fable and Waterstones