I had the pleasure of meeting Clare Clark, author of THE NATURE OF MONSTERS, in Toronto a couple of weeks ago when she was in town for a reading at The Booked! Festival and so I was very happy to see that her devilishly good new novel garnered a great review in The New York Times this weekend:

In “The Nature of Monsters,” Clark again shows an impressive ability to combine historical accuracy with vivid language and a strong plot, confirming her claim to a place in historical city-lit by returning to London for a tale of mystery, skulduggery and (in what seems set to become a hallmark of her work) intensely described physical sensation… As a storyteller, Clark is endowed with verve and intelligence, but her larger gift, dazzlingly in evidence throughout both her fine novels, lies in the originality of her imagination. She gives us a world that feels alive and intense, magnificently raw.

Furthermore, James Macgowan profiled Clare Clark for the Ottawa Citizen on Sunday:

Clark, who just turned 40, studied history at Cambridge, and must have taken her studying seriously, for she doesn’t just describe life in 1719 London, she reconstructs it, smelly detail by smelly detail, until the dirt, the odour, and the brutish streets lift themselves off the page and practically squat down next to you.

And Joseph at The Book Design Review Blog has posted about the terrific cover design for the book!

Here’s a quick summary, of recent reviews and interviews:

Newspapers

The Globe and Mail

The Guardian (United Kingdom)

The New York Times

Ottawa Citizen interview

St. Petersburg Times (Florida)

The Winnipeg Free Press

Online

The Book Design Review

Curled Up With a Good Book interview and review

Eclectic Closet

The Jane Day Reader (this review also ran in The Winnipeg Free Press review)

So Misguided