NetGalley: The Corpse Queen by Heather M. Herrman

By Autumn - September 14, 2021

Published: 9/14/2021

Publisher: G.P. Putnam's Sons Books for Young Readers

Pages: 416

Genre: Historical Fiction/Teens/Ya

Amazon

Soon after her best friend Kitty mysteriously dies, orphaned seventeen-year-old Molly Green is sent away to live with her "aunt." With no relations that she knows of, Molly assumes she has been sold as free domestic labor for the price of an extra donation in the church orphanage's coffers. Such a thing is not unheard of. There are only so many options for an unmarried girl in 1850s Philadelphia. Only, when Molly arrives, she discovers her aunt is very much real, exceedingly wealthy, and with secrets of her own. Secrets and wealth she intends to share--for a price.

Molly's estranged aunt Ava, has built her empire by robbing graves and selling the corpses to medical students who need bodies to practice surgical procedures. And she wants Molly to help her procure the corpses. As Molly learns her aunt's trade in the dead of night and explores the mansion by day, she is both horrified and deeply intrigued by the anatomy lessons held at the old church on her aunt's property. Enigmatic Doctor LaSalle's lessons are a heady mixture of knowledge and power and Molly has never wanted anything more than to join his male-only group of students. But the cost of inclusion is steep and with a murderer loose in the city, the pursuit of power and opportunity becomes a deadly dance.

“I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.”

I was pretty impressed with this book. It was a quick read for me. We are introduced to Molly, who lives in an orphanage with her best friend, Kitty. When Kitty dies, Molly takes it pretty hard as she knows Kitty was killed. She makes it her mission to find out if the guy she was with killed her. Being kicked out of the orphanage to live with an aunt, she has never met Molly becomes a whole other person. One that has a job to do in the end, and she has to realize that these people are just bodies, nothing more. I loved how Molly could compartmentalize what she was asked to do, yet it was done over time. I am unsure how she could do the job after her first run-in with a corpse or at least part of a corpse. As our story unfolds, we learn that everything done is done with a price, and sometimes that price will make you think you are doing the right thing. With the buying of corpses, the unique ones are how they should be put and a killer on the loose; everyone has to be careful. As our story unfolds even further, we see how Molly finds a relationship and can solve a mystery. I enjoyed the mystery around Ava, who is Molly's aunt. When we got to the end, the mystery with her was not what I expected at all. I loved how the author was able to keep it a secret for that long. Molly as a character was just one that I loved. She is head-strong, and being in the 1800s, that was unheard of, so I thought it was great that Molly wanted to do other things and not just bow down to society and do what every other girl did. This is one that I think my students will enjoy, and I plan on buying this to put in my library for them to enjoy. This story is dark but not too dark; it is great to see a woman be the main character and do what she does.

Heather's fiction seeks to explore the relationship between body and landscape, utilizing genre as a medium. She believes that American Horror Fiction provides a lens through which we can undress and view the timeless dis/ease of our society.

Her fiction features typical American families and archetypes and explodes the space where their disillusionment and hope collide. Her characters are constantly seeking a "promised land" built around the mythos of America, only to find themselves trapped in an internal landscape that is fast fracturing and often mirrored in an external environment.

Heather holds an MFA from New Mexico State University, where she was fortunate enough to study with Antonya Nelson, Robert Boswell, and Kevin McIlvoy. Her work has appeared in various publications including the Alaska Quarterly, the South Carolina Review, and Snake Nation Review. Her fiction has also garnered the Frank Waters Prize in fiction and earned a scholarship to the Prague Writers Program.

Her first novel, Consumption, is available now from Random House imprint Hydra.

Heather is represented by Barbara Poelle from the Irene Goodman Literary Agency.