Danielle Giles’ debut novel Mere was a dark, supernatural, sapphic novel set in a remote nunnery in 10th century England. Her second novel, Gentle Things is also historical fiction, and also has a supernatural element, but this one moves the action to 17th Century London. But it just as strange and beguiling and disturbing as her debut.
The first part of Gentle Things revolves around Lucy North. It is just two years since the Great Fire of London and Lucy is helping her mother run a tavern called The Dolphin. Due to Lucy’s father’s death and inheritance laws, the tavern is to go to a distant cousin unless Lucy’s mother can marry Lucy off to a wealthy man. But Lucy has other ideas, and falls for and marries the dashing local apothecary Thomas Ashwell. Only a freak accident on her wedding night dashes her dreams of a happy future. The second part of the novel follows Lucy’s plight but also fills in some of the gaps in the original story, exploring the lives of a number of other key players, before Giles returns to Lucy for a spooky denouement.
Giles develops a rich world of both naïve and flawed characters around Lucy. She also brings 17th Century London vividly to life. In particular, the documented use of human body parts to provide the ingredients for medicines (what better way to cure a skull fracture than imbibing wine laced with powdered human skull?). Giles is also interested in the nefarious ways in which these ingredients were procured. In the world of Gentle Things, while this practice does not seem to have legal repercussions it does have supernatural ones.
Giles draws readers into a little-known aspect of the underbelly of historical London, peopling it with an assortment of colourful characters. The gothic horror element serves to heighten the issues that Giles is seeking to explore. But it also allows Giles to move to a kind of resolution that may not otherwise have been possible. So that Gentle Things becomes a heady mix of genres – a beguilingly dark piece of well-researched historical speculative fiction.
Gentle Things by Danielle Giles
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