Amelia Balfour has made a life for herself as a single woman in the early 1800's by writing travel articles for a leading magazine. Just as she gets an offer to travel to Cairo to do an article, her father dies and she must go to her home estate to look into the care of her younger brother. He was born with Acromegaly and is very large and has oversized brow and hands. In addition, he suffered scars on his face from a fire when he was a boy. Before his death, Amelia's father had arranged for a prominent surgeon to operate on her brother. He promises to change his appearance and give him a new life. The surgeon has a new assistant, Graham Lambert, who is worried about the safety of the procedure. At first he follows the surgeon's instructions, giving the brother electroshock treatments for weeks to "prepare him" for the surgery, but as time passes, both he and Amelia worry about the effects of the treatment on her brother. Do they dare question the renown doctor? And can they ignore their growing attachment to each other?
This was a fun riff on the Frankenstein story. I say "fun" but it is actually fairly dark. The surgeon character is evil, and the author describes the mental torment the brother goes through with a "stream of consciousness" kind of prose. Still, the romance is good, it is clean, and the portrayal of Mary Shelley is delightfully gothic. Actually, "delightfully gothic" is a good descriptor of the work as a whole. I picked this book in a rush when I was waiting for other books I have on hold to come available, but after listening to it I am looking forward to reading the next in the series which is based on the story of Dracula. (320 p. 2021)
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