Description

‘A fantastically moody, unsettling novel, with a teasing, enigmatic atmosphere entirely its own’ SARAH WATERS

‘Intensely lyrical and powerfully haunting… Sublime storytelling and Gothic fiction at its very best!’ SUSAN STOKES-CHAPMAN

‘A novel about wild, dissident passion, the profound dislocations of grief, and the intoxication of composition’ NAOMI BOOTH

‘A little masterpiece of suspense-filled gothic fiction… Persuasive and mysterious’ FINANCIAL TIMES

‘A beautiful, hallucinatory dream of a novel’ J.M. MIRO

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There is a beast inside her, a monster. It wants to scream, it wants to tear things apart.

1816. Mary, eighteen years old, is staying in a villa on Lake Geneva with her lover Percy Shelley. She is tormented by his infidelities; haunted by the loss of her baby daughter.

Then one evening with friends, as storms rage outside and laudanum stirs their imaginations, Lord Byron challenges everyone to write a ghost story, and something fierce and wild awakens in Mary.

Memories surface of the long, strange summer she once spent with a family in Scotland, where she found herself falling in love with the enigmatic Isabella Baxter. She learned tales of mythical beasts, witches and spirits. And she encountered real monsters – both in the rocky wilds, and far, far closer to home…

Illuminating the past like a flash of lightning, this brilliant reimagining of the birth of Frankenstein takes us into a feverish world of waking dreams-where grief mingles with desire, and the veil between beauty and horror grows thin.

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PRAISE FOR MARY

‘A bold new framing’ NEW YORKER

‘Like reading a laudanum dream’ ANNIE GARTHWAITE

‘Rich, intricate and beguiling, this is a novel of enormous insight, great heart and incredible skill’ NELL STEVENS

‘A novel that tiptoes and whispers, woos and caresses like the darkest of fairytales’ JOANNE BURN, author of The Hemlock Cure

‘Intensely sensual and brooding’ ESSIE FOX, author of The Fascination

‘Lush, atmospheric, and deliciously Gothic; Eekhout brings Mary Shelley’s childhood and her conception of Frankenstein to life as surely as any mad scientist ‘ C.E. MCGILL, author of Our Hideous Progeny

‘A literary creation story as bold, terrifying, and riveting as Frankenstein itself’ LAURIE LICO ALBANESE

‘A lyrical dream of a book that strays into the nightmarish, the gothic and the eerie with an assured elegance’ ELIZABETH LEE, author of Cunning Women

‘This gothic, fantasy-tinged historical fiction delves into the teenage years of Mary Shelley to find the inspiration for Frankenstein’ THE BOOKSELLER, Category Spotlight

‘Reveals the rich inner life of one of the world’s greatest creative imaginations’ SARA SHERIDAN

‘Creative confirmation of Shelley’s position as the mother of all goth girls. A moody and evocative reveal of the backstory (behind the backstory) of Frankenstein’ KIRKUS

‘Suitably gothic and atmospheric in tale and tone’ MARIE CLAIRE

‘A must-read’ i

‘A nuanced, beautifully atmospheric portrayal of a young woman’s intense inner life, foreshadowing Frankenstein’s themes of grief, loneliness, and the desire for love’ BOOKLIST

Publisher Review

'A fantastically moody, unsettling novel, with a teasing, enigmatic atmosphere entirely its own' - Sarah Waters 'Mary imagines, with spell-binding vividness, the forbidden desires and creative inspirations that fuelled Mary Shelley's writing. This is a novel about wild, dissident passion, the profound dislocations of grief, and the intoxication of composition. Eekhout's writing is charged with sensual power: the result is a seductive and unnerving account of Mary's most intimate experiences' - Naomi Booth 'A beautiful, hallucinatory dream of a novel, which brings Mary Shelley back to life with a brilliant intensity. This is a marvellous book about desire, and love, and the dark mysteries of the creative act' - J.M. Miro, author of Ordinary Monsters 'A novel that tiptoes and whispers, woos and caresses like the darkest of fairytales. Laudanum and love, wild imaginations and haunted hearts; I was bewitched by this profound and pleasurable imagining of Mary Shelley and the birth of Frankenstein' - Joanne Burn, author of The Hemlock Cure 'Like reading a laudanum dream... Both the language and narrative of Anne Eekhout's book have a hallucinatory quality that encourages us to question everything and doubt everyone. The sense of danger, of violence at the hands of man or monsters, is imbued in every sentence. It brought me to a world where the old certainties of society, convention and religion have been stripped away, and where women like Mary Shelley, though unsure of her steps and uncertain of her fellows, found the courage to live and create' - Annie Garthwaite