The Quick

by Lauren Owen

You are about to discover the secrets of The Quick –

But first you must travel to Victorian Yorkshire, and there, on a remote country estate, meet a brother and sister alone in the world and bound by tragedy. In time, you will enter the rooms of London’s mysterious Aegolius Club – a society of some of the richest, most powerful men in fin-de-siecle England. And at some point – we cannot say when – these worlds will collide.

It is then, and only then, that a new world emerges, one of romance, adventure and the most delicious of horrors – and the secrets of The Quick are revealed.

• ISBN10: 0224096389
• ISBN13: 9780224096386
• Publish Date: 3 April 2014 (first published 1 January 2014)
• Publish Status: Out of Print
• Out of Print: 18 February 2017
• Publish Country: GB
• Publisher: Vintage Publishing
• Imprint: Jonathan Cape Ltd
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 528
• Language: English

Reviews

[wyvernfriend]

Ho hum, the title and it's regular extension told me the twist, I didn't care about the characters or their survival except some minor characters and they were killed off pretty readily.

This falls between urban fantasy set in the past and more literary fantasy but almost magic realistic works like [b:Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell|14201|Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell|Susanna Clarke|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1357027589s/14201.jpg|3921305] and I prefer my fantasy/urban fantasy more straight up.

Failed to live up to the hype

[Beth C.]

Victorian England with vampires. But these are not the vampires of Twilight fame - there is no glittering, no super speed. Instead, there is a high-society men's club, plenty of rules, and a young man who is unknowingly about to cause havoc within that world.

The Quick takes the vampire novel and turns it back on its head to the days of old, when vampires were feared, those who believed in them were called lunatics, and a very few wished to have their long lives for their own. There is horror in this book, and blood - but none of it gratuitous. There is love, of different kinds, and not necessarily what those on the receiving end would have imagined. Best of all, there is a fabulous story with characters that will stay with you long after the story ends. The choices they make - would different choices have changed the outcome? And when does love become a prison instead of a joy?

This book is beautifully written - elegant, almost. Quite impressive for a debut author, and one that I will be sure to keep an eye on in the future.

[Eve1972]

I really enjoyed this book! I wasn't bothered by the "twist", but I can see that if you were expecting one type of novel, and it suddenly became something else, it may be bothersome. Great debut novel!

[Rinn]

I received a copy of this book for free from Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review. Also posted on my blog, Rinn Reads.

This is going to be a fairly short review for two reasons: one, it’s hard to write about this book without giving much away, and two, I didn’t want to break away from the story by taking lots of notes, considering I had a huge break from reading it part way through.

My first impression was that I loved the setting. Starting in a big manor house in the Yorkshire countryside, The Quick is a modern work that echoes stories of the Victorian era. It’s evident that Lauren Owen knows her stuff (she has a Masters degree in Victorian Gothic Literature), and she skilfully creates a rather dark and foreboding tone, even during the early scenes of James and Charlotte’s childhood. The setting moves briefly onto Oxford and then London, all the time retaining the feeling that there is something around the corner, some big shocking moment just waiting to happen. And when the twist does appear – well that’s when the story begins to get very dark. It is wonderfully gloomy and Gothic, I had no trouble at all imagining the London streets filled with smog on a chilly night. Unfortunately I can’t explain much more without spoilers, so I will refrain from explaining myself further!

As for the characters, there is a big reveal to do with James about one hundred pages in that I just did not expect. It has you worrying about what the consequences might be for James, in this society that does not yet understand. One of my favourite parts of the book was the back story of Shadwell and Miss Swift, in itself a wonderful little Gothic story that really helped to build up the characters.

Unfortunately I ended up taking quite a long break (three or four weeks) between reading the first 25% or so, and the last 75% of the book. For the first week of that I just didn’t read at all, and when I got back to reading I moved on to some other books that had closer publication dates. It does make me wonder, if I had read the book all in one go, would I have rated it even more highly? I really did enjoy the story, but I think that because of the break I took in the middle, it felt like it dragged a bit. However, I most definitely cannot fault Lauren Owen’s gorgeous writing style, very evocative of the period in which it is set, and her skill at creating and weaving together multiple stories – the result of which is one beautifully Gothic novel that certainly keeps its secrets well hidden.