Well this is highly deriviative of The Miniaturist, with a nod to 50 Shades thrown in for good measure and it just doesn't quite pull it off. While it succeeds as a fun romp through the dark underbelly of Victorian Edinburgh, it doesn't really work as a whole for me...and just isn't convincing to me....I think there are simply too many threads, like the author had bees in her bonnet about the class system, domestic abuse, drug addiction, British Imperialism...shall we go on.....Instead of concentrating or just one or two and covering them really well most were only touched upon and made the book seem confused and jumbled at times. A fun distracting read so long as you're not expecting any great shakes (for that just go straight to Sarah Waters who does this sort of thing so much better).