The Resurrectionist by A. Rae Dunlap

RomanceHistoricalGothic

Feb 24

Written By taylor shepeard

Title: The Resurrectionist

Author: A. Rae Dunlap

Publication Date: December 24, 2024

Audience: Adult

Genre: Historical

Sub-Genre: Gothic, Romance

POV: Single

Series: Standalone

Format: Audiobook

—Narrator(s): Tom Kiteley

4.75 ⭐ | 1🌶️

Pros:
✨Audiobook Narration
✨Immersive Atmosphere
✨Queer Representation
✨Character Development
✨Genuine and Organic Relationship
✨Historical Authenticity

Cons:
✨Flowery Language
✨ Family Sub-Plot (I get it, but it also had too much weight in the second half)

Synopsis

Edinburgh, Scotland, 1828. Naïve but determined James Willoughby has abandoned his posh, sheltered life at Oxford to pursue a lifelong dream of studying surgery in Edinburgh. A shining beacon of …

… medical discovery in the age of New Enlightenment, the city’s university offers everything James desires—except the chance to work on a human cadaver. For that, he needs to join one of the private schools in Surgeon’s Square, at a cost he cannot afford. In desperation, he strikes a deal with Aneurin “Nye” MacKinnon, a dashing young dissectionist with an artist’s eye for anatomy and a reckless passion for knowledge. Nye promises to help him gain the surgical experience he craves—but it doesn’t take long for James to realize he’s made a devil’s bargain…

Nye is a body snatcher. And James has unwittingly become his accomplice. Intoxicated by Nye and his noble mission, James rapidly descends into the underground ranks of the Resurrectionists—the body snatchers infamous for stealing fresh corpses from churchyards to be used as anatomical specimens. Before he knows it, James is caught up in a life-or-death scheme as rival gangs of snatchers compete in a morbid race for power and prestige.

James and Nye soon find themselves in the crosshairs of a shady pair of unscrupulous opportunists known as Burke and Hare, who are dead set on cornering the market, no matter the cost. These unsavory characters will do anything to beat the competition for bodies. Even if it’s cold-blooded murder…

*Blurb taken from The StoryGraph

Review

This review may contain spoilers.

James wants nothing more than to become a physician so he can explore the mysteries and science of the human body. Unfortunately, the best way to do that requires money, which he has recently run out of. This leads him into the tangled underground of grave digging, where he finds a sharp parallel to the affluent society he’s known his whole life.

I can’t begin to express how much I ADORED this novel. The setting--1828 Edinburgh, Scotland--was beautifully crafted with an emphasis on the gothic and macabre. (Yet, semi-cozy, too? I never had the feeling of dread I normally get in a gothic horror, but the scenes themselves certainly are not for the faint of heart.) I was sucked into Dunlap’s view of this world at once, and felt like I was in the pubs and the labs and the cemeteries right alongside James as he became deeply immersed in this alternate life. James himself was a baffled, humorous, and poignantly outraged character who had me snickering throughout as his endeavors became progressively more heinous. He’s from an aristocratic (though broke) family and he’s a scholar, and this background is the reason I gave Dunlap a pass on her superfluous writing style. It’s was almost too flowery. But that felt very James-like.

I did listen to the audio, and Tom Kiteley excelled at executing this narration. I was hooked by every word! Plus, the accents were stellar. I’m hoping I get more audiobooks narrated by him!

There was a queer awakening in the novel which was handled as though being queer were the most natural thing in the world. This take does go against the time period, but it fits the mind of a scientist who looks pragmatically at anatomy and what our bodies hold. I loved that James found his feelings for Nye simply right, and that he didn’t look beyond that rightness. Their love story made my heart melt.

The plot took quite a few twists and turns, which I enjoyed, and the secondary characters were distinct. I could have done without the family drama in the plot, and it took up too much space at the end. The purpose (I believe) was to show that, despite the time period, societal constraints, and class differences, James and Nye will forge a future together. It made the ending abrupt, but satisfactory overall.

Don’t skip the Historical Note by the author at the end! It was fascinating and made me love the book all the more!