The Peculiarities

By: David Liss

Narrated by: Hannibal Hills

From popular historical fiction author David Liss (A Conspiracy of Paper) comes the tale of a clueless young man embroiled in a deadly supernatural mystery in Victorian London. Rooted in strange conspiracies and secret societies, this absurdist comedic romp combines strange bedfellows with murderous creatures, resulting in an unexpectedly delightful consequences.

Thomas's problems are more serious than those of a typical young Victorian gentleman. His elder brother may be sabotaging the family's bank. His childhood friend has died under mysterious circumstances. Far worse, leaves are sprouting on Thomas's skin. Perhaps it is all the fault of the long-rumored "Peculiarities" lurking in London's grey fog?

Proper society scoffs at the notion of magic, even as it seeps into their buildings, transfiguring the rich and poor alike. If Thomas is going to save the family business - and stop turning into a tree - he'll need help from some rather improper companions. Desperate for counsel, he seeks the advice of a lycanthropic medium and London's unacceptable occult society...including a strange fellow named Aleister Crowley.

©2021 David Liss (P)2021 Tantor

Great Story with Great Narrating.

It was a little slow in the beginning, I did speed up the narrating a tad as I seen another reviewer do. The story was great with plenty of twists that I did not see coming! You really grow to feel sorry for poor ol Thomas! I def recommend!

Not my favorite performer

I have read other books by David Lisa, and enjoyed them very much. I believe that I would have liked this book better if I had read the paper version rather than the audio book version. I did not care for the performer at all. I might have liked the book better with a different performer.

Not really my cup of tea

I might've enjoyed this a bit more if I'd read rather than listened to it. The performer is very talented but his pace was a bit ponderous for me, and between that and the tweediness of the protagonist I had a very tough time paying attention long enough to follow what was happening, especially in the early parts of the book. Helped a bit when I turned the speed up to 1.25x.

Good story. Narration took a bit to get used to.

Overall this is a well made story. Narration took a little getting used to but was not an issue after a few chapters. Good book.

bad book

Some parts were pretty cool and the discripyion was great, but there were somethings that were just hard to get through, like chapter 7 or 8 idk one of the two, was really really grosse, and I was not expecting it, don't buy this book, for your own sake