The Mermaid and Mrs. Hancock by Imogen Hermes Gowar

★★★★★

I can't recall where I first heard buzz about this book but all of a sudden it was talked about often and glowingly. Published early this year in England, it was not yet being offered in the United States. Thank goodness for world commerce on the internet.

It has been a long time since I read a novel as immersive as this. Gowar uses rich visuals in describing scenes and attire, olfactory cues both pleasant and less so, and most deliciously language appropriate to the period. Keep your smart phone handy for a quick google of things like "frumenty." (It is a dish not entirely unlike Cream of Wheat.)

Best of all are the layers upon layers of narrative. There is the surface story of a merchant of moderate means and the infamous prostitute with whom he is besotted. There is the underlying examination of the station of women in the late eighteenth century; of the cheapness of life and the possibility of being nudged into prostitution. There is even, to my delight, the sprinkling of the mystical in the form of mermaids, both real and figurative. Watch for parallel narrative arcs of mermaids and characters. 

I am torn between wanting to hand this book off to friends so they can enjoy it or keeping it all to myself for fear of not getting it back. I will be reading this one again. Five stars.