Untitled Caroline Lea 2025

Untitled Caroline Lea 2025

Summary

1816, Villa Diodati, Lake Geneva. A summer storm is brewing.

Mary Shelley, eighteen-years-old, has fled London with her lover, Percy Shelley, and her step-sister, Claire. Mary is tormented by Shelley's infidelities, haunted by the loss of their baby daughter and suspicious of her sister's intentions.

Geneva promises a new start.

Forced to wait out rain and thunder, Mary is locked in a villa with Shelly, her infuriating sister, and the infamous Lord Byron. But far from being a refuge, the summer is freakishly cold and stormy, skies shrouded with volcanic ash. Whilst waiting for the air to clear beyond their villa's walls, madness and salacious scandal take root indoors. Haunted by repressed desires and the spectres of their pasts, Byron suggests each write a supernatural tale.

Mary has an idea . . . From her fervour, the tale of Frankenstein is born.

Reviews

  • An absolutely gripping novel about the choices women face - and the choices they are denied
    Elodie Harper

About the author

Caroline Lea

Caroline Lea grew up on the island of Jersey. The Glass Woman, her debut, is a gothic thriller set during the Icelandic witch trials. The Metal Heart, a Waterstones Scottish Book of the Month, is an epic Second World War love story; Prize Women reveals a feminist scandal at the heart of the roaring 20s. Her latest novel reimagines Mary Shelley and the writing of Frankenstein.
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