The Knowing by Emma Hinds

 

The Knowing by Emma Hinds.

Published 18th January 2024 by Bedford Square.

From the cover of the book:

In the slums of 19th-century New York.

A tattooed mystic fights for her life.

Her survival hangs on the turn of a tarot card.

Whilst working as a living canvas for an abusive tattoo artist in the slums of 19th-century New York, Flora meets Minnie, an enigmatic circus performer who offers her love and refuge in an opulent townhouse that is home to the menacing and predatory Mr Chester Merton. Flora earns her keep reading tarot cards for his guests whilst struggling to harness her gift, the Knowing - an ability to summon the dead. Caught in a dark love triangle between Minnie and Chester, Flora begins to unravel the secrets inside their house. Then at her first public séance in the infamous cathouse Hotel du Woods, Flora hears the spirit of a murdered boy prostitute and exposes his killer, setting off a train of events that leaves her fighting for her life.

The Knowing is a stunning debut inspired by real historical characters including Maud Wagner, one of the first known female tattoo artists, New York gang the Dead Rabbits, and characters from PT Barnum's circus in the 1800s.

Something Powerful Is Coming.

***********

Five Points, New York, 1866. Flora has only ever known the slums of Manhattan. Her life as the property of cruel tattoo artist Jordan, who uses her as a canvas for his art and a punchbag for his jealous temper, is a hard one. The only comfort she finds is from carefully inking herself in the few bare patches of skin he has left uncovered - and reading her well-worn tarot cards. 

When Flora meets Minnie, a former circus performer who runs her own stable of female artistes, she finally sees a way to escape the misery of her existence. Minnie needs her as an act for her show, and she promises Flora the kind of life she cannot imagine - but there are conditions. One of these is that they must live in the house of wealthy, debauched Chester Merton, a man whose appetites for young flesh cannot be contained, and whose relationship with Minnie is decidedly murky. 

Caught between the fear she may be dragged back to the slums by her former master, and the unwelcome attentions of Chester, Flora is plagued by worries that her life has not really improved, but more than that she is terrified people will discover that she is hiding a secret that gives her knowledge of much more than the fortunes her tarot deck can prophecy. For Flora has the gift of the Knowing... an ability to see and speak with the dead. Even though Flora has learned the hard way to keep this talent to herself, her new life makes her feel complicated emotions she does not know how to process, and brings her into contact with people who have many sins to hide, and the dead will not be denied...

Inspired by real characters from nineteenth century New York (including one of the first female tattoo artists Maud Wagner), the dangerous slums of a city ruled by brutal gangs, and the circus shows of P.T. Barnum, The Knowing is a mesmerising debut that holds you fast from the first page to the last.

Hinds takes you on a journey from the perilous lanes of Five Points, an area that displays its hard reputation front and centre, to the high-class salons of Uptown with their own share of despicable residents, albeit hiding underneath expensively clad facades - and in a lovely twist, to the cold hard streets of Manchester too. With threads of money, madness, cruelty, control, unsavoury vices, forbidden liaisons, and a fascination with 'freaks' and curiosities, Hinds begins her slow burn story in Gothic melodrama country, but it is not long before the powerful supernatural sway of the novel takes over through whispers of the shifting spectres that lurk on the corner of Flora's vision... and the tale explodes with blood, violence, betrayal, and ghosts in search of vengeance. The nightmare element burgeons, laced with the seductive pull of a love story playing out in gritty surroundings, and as Flora is overwhelmed with the call of the Knowing, so the dark, menacing side of the story dominates.

This is written to evoke all the discomfiting feelings Hinds deliberately sets out to lay before the eyes of the reader, and she holds very little back about the unpleasant nature of many of her characters, and the reality of life for women in Victorian society. But her heroines are also complex and carefully drawn, and Hinds does not shy away from delving into all the shades of grey around the things they do and the decisions they make in their fight for justice and agency in their own lives. 

Ultimately, this is a story about the many faces of power, that thrums with feminist themes, and although it drags you through the mire of wrenching emotions, there is plenty here to warm the cockles of your heart with threads of love, friendship, hope and family too. There are delicious echoes of Sarah Waters in this novel, and I cannot wait to see what comes from the pen of Emma Hinds next, because this is a spellbinding beginning.

The Knowing is available to buy now in hardcover, ebook and audio formats.

Thank you to Ed PR and Bedford Square for sending me a copy of this book in return for an honest review.

About the author:

Emma is a queer playwright living in Manchester with a focus on telling untold feminist narratives. Her latest play, PURE, was featured in Turn On festival at Hope Mill Theatre Manchester in 2021 and she was the recipient of the Artist Development grant 2021 at Hope Mill Theatre. She has written a few previous non-fiction books in her capacity as an academic with an essay published in Tarantino and Theology with Gray Matter Books and her book Ineffable Love: Christian Themes in Good Omens published by Darton Longman & Todd.