Review
Title: The Merchant and the Rogue
Author: Sarah M. Eden
Publisher: Shadow Mountain
Genre: Fiction
Year Published: 2021
Number of Pages: 352
Binding: softcover
ISBN-13: 978-1-62972-851-3
ISBN-10: 162972851
Price: $15.99
Reviewed by Christine Tensmeyer for the Association for Mormon Letters
Every book by Sarah M. Eden that I’ve read I thoroughly enjoy! The Merchant and the Rogue is no exception to this statement.
This is a side note, but I really enjoy a beautiful book cover, say what you will about judging a book by its cover. The Merchant and the Rogue has a beautiful book cover. It has an old-fashioned design look that strikes me as Victorian, although I couldn’t say how historically accurate the cover is. I also really like the delicate use of shamrocks on the cover as one of the main characters is Irish. Overall, a very pleasing design.
The Merchant and the Rogue takes place in London, England, in 1865. It is the third book in Eden’s “The Dread Penny Society” series, but I found it could stand alone. As I haven’t read the two previous books in the series, I couldn’t say for sure how well they correlate together. This book is a Proper Romance novel. One thing that I really appreciated about The Merchant and the Rogue is that the characters aren’t upper-class or society people, as they usually are in Proper Romance novels. The characters in this story are immigrants who are scraping pennies together and have less than ideal working and living conditions, yet they also find time to do good in their various communities.
The Merchant and the Rogue has a different story-telling format than most novels. The main character of the story, Vera Sorokina loves reading penny dreadfuls. Inserted among the chapters of the story are chapters from the penny dreadfuls that Vera is reading. I personally didn’t care much for this tactic; it was difficult in the beginning to keep track of two penny dreadful stories and Vera’s story. This style kept jerking me out of the actual book storyline. While I can’t see how else Sarah M. Eden could have worked two penny dreadful stories into her novel, the style did take some getting used to. The penny dreadful chapters didn’t drive the actual book plot along much in my opinion, but they were interesting enough to read by themselves. Overall, they gave the reader excellent examples of what people used to buy for a penny back in the day.
I appreciate it when authors write at the back of their stories about the real-life people, places, and historical events that they incorporate into their books. For The Merchant and the Rogue, I learned that the Dead Zoo is actually Dublin’s Museum of Natural History. The people of Dublin nicknamed it “The Dead Zoo” due to all the taxidermy specimens on display. I really liked the discussion questions at the back of the book, which are great to help lead a book club discussion, and the questions also have statements with some historical facts and terms. One of the discussion questions/statements talks about fear dearg, which I learned is a creature from Irish folklore that is supposed to be frightening. The question itself is, “what role do scary tales play in children’s stories?”
I felt that The Merchant and the Rogue ended with a lot of loose ends. It seems to be laying the foundation for the next book in the series during the last chapter. I am looking forward to reading the next book in the Dread Penny Society and going back to read the previous books! I remain still a Sarah M. Eden fan.