A sprightly, well overdue first novel by a young British author better known until now for her short stories and academic work, this gripping gothic thriller manages to put an imaginative new spin on the Frankenstein story. The doomed and mournful scientist is on Orkney seeking to fulfill his pact with the monster and make him a wife. The terrible tale unfolds through the eyes of poor Oona, his housemaid and now accomplice. Horsley combines a deft literary touch and an ease with the intricacies of the weird, with a powerful feminist angle, in this retelling of a much-told story with striking originality. More than yet another attempt at a sequel to a classic, this is a fiercely accomplished fever dream.
To a tiny island in Orkney, peopled by a devout community of thirty, comes Victor Frankenstein, driven there by a Devil’s bargain: to make a wife for the Creature who is stalking him across Europe. In this darkly-wrought answer to Frankenstein, we hear the untold tale of the monster’s wife through the perspective of the doctor’s The Monster's Wifehousemaid. Oona works below stairs with her best friend May, washing the doctor’s linens and keeping the fires lit at the Big House. An orphan whose only legacy is the illness that killed her mother, Oona knows she is doomed.But she is also thirsty for knowledge, determined to know life fully before it slips away. As tensions heighten between Victor and the islanders, Oona becomes the doctor’s trusted accomplice, aiding in secret experiments and seeing horrors she sometimes wishes to forget. When May disappears, Oona must face up to growing suspicions about the enigmatic employer to whom she has grown close – but the truth is darker than anything she could imagine.
"This is a superb debut, an atmospheric and gripping mystery that picks up where the original Frankenstein left off. But to call it a sequel would do it no justice, because this book is fresh and original, and bursting with the most beautiful and lyrical prose. A stunning novel." - KJ Wignall, author of The Mercian Trilogy
Author
About Kate Horsley
After years spent unravelling the mysteries of Medieval manuscripts during her PhD at Harvard, Kate Horsley adandoned truth for fiction, returning to the UK to take an MA in creative writing at Lancaster. Since then, her poems and short stories have been published in several magazines and anthologies and her work has won awards. Kate now teaches at the University of Chester, where she's a Writing Fellow. She lives in Manchester with her artist partner, a ghost called Ron and a growing museum of curiosities.
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