“A beautiful, hallucinatory dream of a novel.” –J.M. Miro, Author of the National Bestseller Ordinary Monsters
“A fantastically moody, unsettling novel."–Sarah Waters, New York Times bestselling author of The Paying Guests and Fingersmith
A "bold ... hypnotic" (The New Yorker) reimagining of Mary Shelley’s youth, vividly exploring innocence, young love, gothic mystery and the roots of her literary masterpiece, Frankenstein.
Switzerland, 1816. A volcanic eruption in Indonesia envelopes the whole of Europe in ash and cloud. Amid this “year without a summer,” eighteen-year-old Mary Shelley and her lover Percy Bysshe Shelley arrive at Lake Geneva to visit Lord Byron and his companion John Polidori. Anguished by the recent loss of her child, Mary spends her days in strife. But come nightfall, th
