ARC Review: The Devious Dr. Jekyll by Viola Carr

Recommended Read!

“The Devious Dr. Jekyll really ups the ante and surpasses the first book in the series for storytelling, excitement and character development, riveting me to my kindle from start to finish.”
~ Under the Covers

Dr. Eliza Jekyll lives a complicated life, her fame on the solving the “Chopper” case earning her the recognition she deserves, but with secrets as dark and dangerous as hers, any deep scrutiny could leave her burning at the stake. And being courted by Royal Society agent and wolfman Captain Remy Lafayette, the man her darker half Lizzie Hyde longs for doesn’t make her life any easier. Especially when the good captain offers her something she can’t resist; a gruesome murder to investigate. With french agents, dark rituals, theft and plots afoot Eliza may be way over her head, especially as the murderer on the lose on London isn’t the one one intent on doing her harm; Lizzie has had enough of living in the shadows…

I barely know where to being with this review, Viola Carr has given us a book packed to the brim full of murder, mayhem and dark twisted plots all with Eliza and Lizzie stuck in the middle. The Devious Dr. Jekyll really ups the ante and surpasses the first book in the series for storytelling, excitement and character development, riveting me to my kindle from start to finish.

What I have found utterly fascinating in these books in the relationship between Eliza and Lizzie, two different souls living within the same body, both fighting for dominance, both having a little something that the other lacks. In The Devious Dr. Jekyll this battle between them and the resentment it brings is really brought to light. It’s heart breaking, like watching two sisters viciously fighting and cruelly hurting one another like no one else can. I especially feel for Lizzie, the darker of the two hidden away like a dirty secret:

I’ve always been the lesser half, wallowing in dirt and decadence while Eliza keeps pure.

But now a poxy itch plagues my flesh, this diseased notion that no, Miss Lizzie, you ain’t half a person after all. You’re no person. A shadow. An empty cipher. A figment of some ugly dream she’r having, while tucked safely in bed. Come morning, she’ll recall fragments, my voice, liquor’s dark flavour, the starlit shock of a caress- and a shiver will rack her spine

Then she’ll turn her face to the sun, and forget me. And I’ll vanish. Ashes on a breeze. .. I’m part of her. Why does she HATE me so much?

But romance isn’t the main focus on this book, the twisted relationships between Eliza, Lizzie, Remy and various other characters tangle further as a result of nefarious happenings in London. Gruesome murders, art theft and a dark and sinister french scheme all mix together in this book to form a complicated and exciting plot that makes this book thrilling and exciting. The more that is revealed the more complicated and impossible it seems to be, making The Devious Dr. Jekyll exciting and hard to put down.

I really enjoyed this book, it manages to be exiting and intriguing whilst also capturing your emotions as you watch Lizzie and Eliza struggle against one another, never seeming to realise that they always stronger when they are together. I now can’t wait to read the next book in Viola Carr’s Electric Empire series.

She need me, to do the things she can’t – and to swallow the guilt, too, like sweet fairy absinthe, because without me, it’d kill her. But I need her, too. To keep me from sliding into endless darkness. I’m the shadow in her heart the rotting portrait of her soul. But I’m more than that. I ain’t just half a person. We’re two people knotted into one. And for good or ill, we can’t be undone.

[about-author author=”Viola Carr”]

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