This gothic historical horror is set in an alternative London, where spirit work is not just a parlor trick, but a real thing. But just like the real victorian London of the time, the society is saturated in misogyny, racism, ableism and queerphobia. Silas, a young autistic trans man, wants to escape an arranged marriage and the role of a speaker wife by becoming a speaker himself. Even the dangers of being discovered pale in comparision to his terror of a life like that.
Silas is an incredibly interesting character and I really enjoyed delving into his story of life as a trans man in a misogynistic society, an autistic man in an ableist society and especially as somebody who despite his marginalizations and the abuse he faced due to it often still realized that his upper-class status, his desireability as a future bearer of (hopefully male) violet-eyed children and his ability to learn to speak and mask his autistic traits due to (abusive) tutoring protected him at points. Particularly solidarity across class and gender play a huge part in this story and my favorite friend- and relationships in the book where between Silas and the nonverbal autistic groundskeeper and Silas, a trans man, and Daphne, a trans woman.
I also really enjoyed the horror aspects of this novel, from the oppressive society, the exploration of gothic themes of powerlessness, madness and ghosts, to the body horror and the gore. Personally I wish there had been a bit more of it (I love gore and medical horror and so that was a huuuge selling point for me), but I enjoyed everything we got. It was really well done as well.
I wish we had gotten a little bit more information on the other girls at the home, as their storylines were swallowed by the mystery, Silas' and Daphne's blossoming relationship and the day-to-day struggle for survival. Similarly the villains fell a bit flat, especially the reveal of

Spoiler

Lord Luckenbills

evilness felt both too obvious (it was pretty clear he was a dick beforehand!) and too similar to the horrible behaviour of the other cis men in the story. While this did work with the gothic genre I just expected it to delve a little bit deeper or portray some more varied villains and found particularly the repetitiveness of their motivations a bit boring.
Despite this I still absolutely adored the book, I really liked Silas, I loved the trans range and the anxiety and autism representation, I found the mystery and the mythology intruiging, I liked the world building and I can't wait for what Andrew Joseph White writes next.