Enclosed herewith: the hitherto untold story of Mrs. Lovett, Sweeney Todd's infamous partner in crime-a bloodcurdling correspondence of profound horror and intrigue
For fans of Sarah Waters, Gregory Maguire, and Graeme Macrae Burnet, and based on the original Victorian penny dreadful
London, England, 1887: At the abandoned apartment of a missing young woman, a dossier of evidence is collected, ordered chronologically, and sent to the Chief Inspector of the London Police for review. It contains a curious correspondence between an inquisitive journalist, Miss Emily Gibson, and the woman Gibson thinks may be the infamous Mrs. Lovett-Sweeney Todd's accomplice, who baked men into pies and sold them in her pie shop on Fleet Street. A "wicked woman"-the talk of London Town.
Rumors have swirled about Mrs. Lovett since the disappearance of hundreds of unwitting men decades prior-but is it actually Lovett, even if the suspected woman swears against it? As the woman relays the harrowing account of her life-from her upbringing on Butcher's Row, in the unruly and perilous streets of Victorian London, to her daring escape from a mad doctor-the correspondence unlocks an intricate mystery that brings Miss Gibson closer to the truth, even as that truth may cost her dearly.
The Butcher's Daughter is a breathtaking epistolary journey, an inventive horror novel that sets the stage for the terrors of the modern era-and, at long last, unravels the true story behind Mrs. Lovett and her unspeakable crimes.