Mary Toft, or The Rabbit Queen by Dexter Palmer

Disclaimer: I received a copy of this novel from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

I am always looking to read something that is a little quirky, a little left of center, or weird enough that it probably won't flood the Bookstagram feed. When I read the summary of Mary Toft, or the Rabbit Queen, I thought "ding ding ding...we have a winner." A woman giving birth to dead rabbits? Yep, that's my kind of weird. Upon further research I found out that this a historical fiction novel based on real events! Needless to say I couldn't wait to get my hands on it! While the main storyline of this novel is about a woman giving birth to rabbits, the story really revolves around everyone else involved. As the story of Mary's births spreads throughout her small town and then to nearby London, more people are drawn into her circle. Characters in this novel range from a small town surgeon and his apprentice to a traveling team of performers in an "Exhibition of Medical Curiosities" to a variety of King George's agents. Their interactions show their class differences, pride, and cunning and the jabs, barbs, and stories they tell are so subtly snarky that I was laughing quite a bit. Another great layer to this novel was the vocabulary. I loved reading this on my Kindle so I could look all the words up with a touch. I loved this novel but I wouldn't recommend it to everyone. 

Goodreads Summary:
From the highly acclaimed author of Version Control a stunning, powerfully evocative new novel based on a true story--in 1726 in the small town of Godalming, England, a young woman confounds the medical community by giving birth to dead rabbits.
Surgeon John Howard is a rational man. His apprentice Zachary knows John is reluctant to believe anything that purports to exist outside the realm of logic. But even John cannot explain how or why Mary Toft, the wife of a local farmer, manages to give birth to a dead rabbit. When this singular event becomes a regular occurrence, John realizes that nothing in his experience as a village physician has prepared him to deal with a situation as disturbing as this. He writes to several preeminent surgeons in London, three of whom quickly arrive in the small town of Godalming ready to observe and opine. When Mary's plight reaches the attention of King George, Mary and her doctors are summoned to London, where Zachary experiences for the first time a world apart from his small-town existence, and is exposed to some of the darkest corners of the human soul. All the while, Mary lies in bed, waiting for another birth, as doubts begin to blossom among the surgeons and a growing group of onlookers grow impatient for another miracle...