Pair that with the Josef Hoffman parts and it really made the city an exciting setting. Prague is a stunning city and this was an excellent setting for this story. While this book was a huge struggle for me to read, there were things that I found compelling enough to soldier on. I understood their intent and how they were meant to develop atmosphere but telling us about their arrival so much just seemed forced. She mentioned the jackdaws so so so so many times that all I could do was roll my eyes every time I read about them. I also felt like there were too many times that Perry tried to tell us about atmosphere instead of showing atmosphere. Again, as a fan of the gothic this is what I would expect from the characters-at least to some degree-but they just didn’t work for me in the way that I think they were intended. No one is likable and no one is even remotely relatable. Everyone we meet in this book has issues. I didn’t like Helen at all, Karl seemed like a dick, and Josef Hoffman….don’t even get me started on him. They were all so guarded, weird, and drab. But I couldn’t even begin to get to know any of them. I understand that the characters are supposed to be unlikeable. Now ordinarily I would DNF a book if it’s boring or if I’m just not into it, but I kept hoping it would pick up and so many people raved about the ending that I just pressed on hoping for it to get better. I just think this one was a miss, at least for me.

I would like to think it’s because my expectations were high, but I haven’t read anything else by her so I don’t think that it was that. This book was excruciatingly painful for me to read. And then Karel disappears ( summary from Goodreads). To Helen it all seems the stuff of unenlightened fantasy.īut, unaware, as she wanders the cobblestone streets Helen is being watched. That changes when her friend Karel discovers a mysterious letter in the library, a strange confession and a curious warning that speaks of Melmoth the Witness, a dark legend found in obscure fairy tales and antique village lore.Īs such superstition has it, Melmoth travels through the ages, dooming those she persuades to join her to a damnation of timeless, itinerant solitude.

In Prague, working as a translator, she has found a home of sorts-or, at least, refuge. It has been years since Helen Franklin left England. I have never heard the tales of Melmoth the witness but I love Prague and with this novel being set there, I could barely get the box unwrapped before I started reading this one. With October in full swing and this book being released, I decided to start with this book before I read The Essex Serpent. I have Perry’s novel, The Essex Serpent, to read and have heard rave reviews about it. This book was on my radar since I’m a huge fan of gothic literature.

Melmoth legend