Opium and Absinthe

Having been a horror fan since I was a kid and having read an annotated version of Dracula when I was a teen, I’ve always been drawn to books about Vlad the Impaler and Elizabeth Bathory. So when I came across Opium and Absinthe by Lydia Kang, I was intrigued.

While the novel does weave in quotes from Dracula and the victims do have bite marks on their necks and all of their blood is missing, that’s where most of the on the surface similarities end. But the main themes in Dracula (besides good vs. evil) are addiction, dependency, and loss of control which are also the themes in Opium and Absinthe. From reading the synopsis I thought the novel was going to lean more towards the supernatural, but this was actually a pretty heavy read show more at times and definitely a slow burn.

Kang delves into addiction during the turn of the century and how it was another way to control women who were starting to question their places in society in a much more outspoken way than previous decades. Tillie starts taking opium for her riding injury, but begins taking more to deaden not only the physical pain, but the emotional pain of losing her sister. And then there are other people in her circle who want to keep her addicted for reasons of their own too.

There are times when the book didn’t exactly drag on, but with Tillie so out of it or sleeping because of the drugs, the story wasn’t as fast paced as some mysteries. At first I was going to skim to get to the mystery, but Kang entwines all of the aspects so well that I found myself wanting to read even the slower parts because they really were essential to the story. Besides a great portrayal of addiction, Lang also incorporates historical events and places during the turn of the century. And I did not see the final reveal coming which turned out to be a bit twisted.

Looking over the other titles that Kang has written it appears that a strong female protagonist is what she writes about, and if they are as good as Opium and Absinthe I will be super happy. A couple of the titles that I’m going to read (eventually!) are The Impossible Girl and A Beautiful Poison. show less

It's not a great sign if partway through a book, your reader stops to look it up online and says, "Oh, no it's not intended to be a young adult book." I've read some of Lydia Kang's work before and enjoyed it in a pulpy, historical mystery kind of way, and I hoped that Opium and Absinthe would fill that same niche. Sadly, it's nowhere near as strong as the previous book of hers I read.

It's set in Gilded Age New York where Tillie, member of a wealthy and overbearing family, develops an opioid addiction (remember, in the 1890s heroin was an over-the-counter cough medicine!) round about the same time that her elder sister is murdered in a manner bizarrely reminiscent of the hot new novel, Dracula. This scenario could be immense fun in the show more right hands!

Unfortunately, those hands are not Kang's. Pretty much everyone in this book has a case of the Stupids, and Tillie has the most advanced case of all. (There's one thing in particular she does near the end of the book that had me proclaim aloud, à la John Mulaney, "That's what I thought you'd do, you dumb fucking horse.") She's the kind of young female character that gets described as Spunky when really she's just massively irritating. show less

Misunderstood heiress Tillie Pembroke's mind buzzes with obsessive, somewhat nonsensical, thoughts. Moreover, a shoulder injury paves the way for her to become addicted to prescription painkillers. Then, on top of that, this unlikely heroine becomes an amateur sleuth when her sister is found murdered, vampire style, and the police in New York City c. 1899 inexplicably refuse to do anything about it. Add to these plot points a suitor and servants who have vested interests in keeping Tillie in a drug-induced fog, and it is clear even from this oversimplified description that this novel has a lot on its plate. Nonetheless, I enjoyed it.

"It is better to be a coward than a corpse"

I must say I absolutely loved this and the only reason it’s not 5 stars is because I found the drug addiction a bit tiresome after a while. I wanted more of the mystery and hints of vampirism. It is a wonderfully twisty and gothic historical mystery loosely inspired by Bram Stoker’s Dracula. It kept me guessing until the end and I never suspected who the killer was!

Tillie’s character is a touch annoying in the beginning but it’s short lived and she becomes someone to inspire and root for. All of the characters are so richly portrayed even the hateful ones. It’s impossible not to find them all engaging and get caught up in their webs.

Beautifully written and utterly unputdownable.

Opium and Absinthe - Kang
2.5 stars

The setting is New York City on the cusp of the 20th century. The protagonist is a laudanum addicted young woman named Tillie Pembroke. She becomes addicted to medication prescribed for her following an injury that coincides with her sister’s murder. It’s a bizarre murder. Her sister was found with puncture wounds to her neck, her blood drained, with a bottle of absinthe near her corpse.

It could have been an entertaining mystery. The references to the recently published Dracula should have been fun. But it wasn’t.

Tillie’s ever increasing drug dependence was overdone. I get it. Dangerous drugs were unregulated and over prescribed by a misogynistic medical establishment. Was this a book with a show more macabre mystery to solve or a history of medical malpractice?

Young women of the wealthy upper class were overly chaperoned, under educated and restricted in most human activities. If this was so, how did Tillie, (in her continually stoned condition) escape all restrictions to wander around the city in the company of a Jewish paperboy? It wasn’t even remotely believable. Just disappointing. show less

Wealthy, sheltered, Tillie doesn't fit in with New York society. She cares little for their recreations and fashions, and much more about satisfying her lively curiosity by reading dictionaries. When her older sister is murdered, she sets out to find out who did it, and whether or not the two puncture wounds on her neck and lack of blood indicate she was the victim of a vampire.

Author Lydia Kang is a doctor who discovered that morphine and heroin became available in the United States around the same time that "Dracula" did. She blends the fascination with vampires and her understanding of medical history with a dash of "Newsies" (by her own admission), to create a finding-one's-self story about a young woman whose quest for knowledge show more and justice is hampered by an opiate addiction resulting from treatment for a broken collar bone.

It's a solid story, one which I think I would have enjoyed more if I'd read the afterword first and known about the author's profession and the interesting timing of "Dracula" and opiates. As it was, I almost didn't finish the story because about two-thirds of the way through it started to drag, but I'm glad I finished it to find out who the murderer was and what their method and motivation were.

I received a free copy of the book as part of Amazon's monthly "First Reads" program. It's not one I would have gone out of my way to read. show less

Opium and Absinthe is a historical murder mystery featuring a heroine that is somewhat of a Cowardly Lion. She is timid in society and scared of new things and challenges. She’s a reader who wants to be left alone, but when her sister is murdered, her body drained of blood reminiscent of the newly released “Dracula” book by Bram Stoker, well, fear won’t keep her from finding out who killed her sister.

Tillie Pembroke is quite smart and she has an ally with newspaperman determined to get the true story. But there are challenges, not just the proprieties that limit young women in that time, but she has broken a bone while horseback riding and has come to love the opium prescribed for pain just a little bit too much and there are show more far too many people willing to help her habit.

I enjoyed Opium and Absinthe quite a bit even though I wondered how someone as sharp as Tillie could tolerate the fuzziness of thought that comes with opium. She slid quite easily into addiction and struggled hard against it. This was an intriguing mystery with fair clues that led readers to guess some of the solution, but not nearly all of it. The killer was truly diabolical and getting there was a touch combination of sleuthing and luck.

Opium and Absinthe will be released July 1st. I received an early release from Amazon’s First Reads perk with Amazon Prime.

Opium and Absinthe. at Lake Union | Amazon Publishing

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