Elizabeth Lavenza hasn't had a proper meal in weeks. Her thin arms are covered with bruises from her "caregiver," and she is on the verge of being thrown into the streets . . . until she is brought to the home of Victor Frankenstein, an unsmiling, solitary boy who has everything--except a friend.

Victor is her escape from misery. Elizabeth does everything she can to make herself indispensable--and it works. She is taken in by the Frankenstein family and rewarded with a warm bed, delicious food, and dresses of the finest silk. Soon she and Victor are inseparable.

But her new life comes at a price. As the years pass, Elizabeth's survival depends on managing Victor's dangerous temper and entertaining his every whim, no matter how depraved. Behind her blue eyes and sweet smile lies the calculating heart of a girl determined to stay alive no matter the cost . . . as the world she knows is consumed by darkness.

 
Written for the 200th anniversary of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, White pens a beautiful and haunting retelling of the horror classic. Told from the perspective of Elizabeth Lorenzo, Victor’s childhood friend, and later, wife, we delve into the dark dwellings of the Frankenstein manor and what lies beyond: murder, corruption and scientific experiments.

Elizabeth Lorenzo gains agency in this retelling: crafty, cunning and clever, she stops at nothing to secure her place in the Frankenstein family and in Victor’s heart. No longer an object for Victor to own and dominate, Elizabeth Lorenzo fights back in ways that would be far too spoilerish to share. In other words, please gentle readers pick up this delightfully creepy little tale, you will not regret it.

Best read by those familiar with Shelley’s tale, White offers an interesting twist on the original material and layers it with plenty of homages (“I will be with you on your wedding night” anyone?).

I absolutely adored this book, especially the final third of it. Kiersten White has such a gift when it comes to writing historical retellings and I will gladly read each and every one of them.

KIERSTEN WHITE is the New York Times bestselling author of The Dark Descent of Elizabeth Frankenstein, the And I Darken series, comprised of And I Darken, Now I Rise, and Bright We Burn; the Paranormalcy series; Slayer, and many more novels. She lives with her family near the ocean in San Diego, which, in spite of its perfection, spurs her to dream of faraway places and even further-away times.

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