Book Review: Stalking Jack the Ripper by Kerri Maniscalco

Title: Stalking Jack The Ripper

Author: Kerri Maniscalco

Published by: Jimmy Patterson

Publishing date: September 20th 2016

Genre:  Young Adult, Historical Fiction, Mystery

Pages: 326

Seventeen-year-old Audrey Rose Wadsworth was born a lord’s daughter, with a life of wealth and privilege stretched out before her. But between the social teas and silk dress fittings, she leads a forbidden secret life.

Against her stern father’s wishes and society’s expectations, Audrey often slips away to her uncle’s laboratory to study the gruesome practice of forensic medicine. When her work on a string of savagely killed corpses drags Audrey into the investigation of a serial murderer, her search for answers brings her close to her own sheltered world.

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A little story about me and this book

I recieved this book in exchange for an honest review a long time ago, I was supposted to be part of the blog tour that took place like 9 months  ago. A lot of things happened in my personal life at that time and they made it impossible to read and review this book. I actually read the first two pages and I didn’t enjoy them, but I didn’t know if it was me because I had so much going on or if it was the book.

This January I finally decided to give this another try and I ended up really enjoying this book. It actually has one of my new favorite ships, which is one of the main reason that I enjoyed this book so much. I didn’t post my review back in January because I was gonna wait until the release date of the second book was closer, but since the arc copies of book 2 are starting to make it to readers, I feel like this is a good time to help increase the excitement for this series.

Without further ado, here’s the review!

The review

Stalking Jack the Ripper is set in 1888 and it’s based on the murders commited by Jack the Ripper, who terrorized London with his brutality during this time. The author takes full advantage of this premise and she makes this a very atmospheric book, with fog, a mystery vibe and a eerie feel to it. At the same time, there’s a lot of grusome scenes and imaginery, there’s blood and organs and this is very descriptive when it comes to how the victims were murdered.

In the midst of this background, there’s Audrey Rose, the main character, an extremely intelligent girl that spends the book struggleling and defying the gender restrictions of her time. She is definitely not, what in her time would have been considered, a proper lady,  she spends her days opening dead bodies and she is fascinated by anatomical dissection.  It’s amazing to have a main female character in a YA book that it’s into science or a science related field, because it doesn’t happen that often. Going back to Audrey, for someone so intelligent, she is incredibly reckeless and impulsive, and in her desire to not conforme to society’s gender ideas she puts herself at risk repeatedly throughout this book.

On the other hand, there’s Thomas, the other main character in this book, he’s also incredibly intelligent and has really good deduction skills. Another very important thing about Thomas is that he’s a complete flirt and his responses are always witty and sarcastic.  Also,  he is really arrogant and he doesn’t try to hide it. Both  Thomas and Audrey are very strong-willed, and that makes the dynamic between them incredible, they work well together but there’s also a lot of chemestry that goes beyond crime-solving partners. There’s banter and bickering but also smart conversations. Honestly, this is a swoon worthy romance.

The problem with this book is that the mystey aspect is a bit a predictable, really early on is easy to tell who Jack the Ripper is.  Nonetheless, the book keeps you wondering when the main characters are gonna realise who the culprit is and that manages to keep the suspense alive.  Another minor issue with the book, is that  Audrey and Thomas do a lot of ‘stalking’’ throughout the story and that ends up helping little to solve the crimes. The ‘stalking’ is a bit pointless and it reveals to be more reckless than courageous.

Rating: 4,2 stars

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