Dorothy & Thomas Hoobler, The Monsters Mary Shelley & The Curse Of Frankenstein

Blurb:The remarkable true story of Frankenstein's origins and the curse on its creators.
On a dark and stormy night in 1816, on the shore of Lake Geneva in Switzerland, Lord Byron, famed English poet, challenged his friends to a contest--to write a ghost story. The assembled group included the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley; his lover (and future wife) Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin; Mary's stepsister Claire Claremont; and Byron's physician, John William Polidori. The famous result of that night was Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, a work that appeared in print two years later and has retained its hold on the popular imagination for almost two centuries. Less well-known was Polidori's work, the first vampire novel. It too would inspire a legend (and most directly Bram Stoker's Dracula), as well as many nightmares. And the evening begat a curse, too: Within a few years of Frankenstein's publication, nearly all of those involved met untimely deaths.

THE MONSTERS tells the riveting story of the real-life characters surrounding the creation of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. It reveals not just the origins of two of the most famous monsters in popular culture, but the monstrous nature of the young people who gathered on the shore of Lake Geneva. Gripping and spooky, THE MONSTERS is unforgettable.

One of the most well written and engaging biographies I have read. I new very little about these 5 people before, now I have better understanding of who they were and just how great. To me Byron benefited most from the Shelley's while Percy gained more from friendship with Byron. Mary Shelley may have never written Frankenstein if not for Byron that summer. 5 out of 5

Katherine McMahon, The Alchemist's Daughter

Blurb:Dark secrets haunt the manor house at Selden in Buckinghamshire, where Emilie Selden, motherless, fiercely intelligent and more beautiful than she realises, has been raised in near isolation by her father.

John Selden, student of Isaac Newton, is conducting a bold and secret experiment. He aims to turn Emilie into a brilliant natural philosopher and alchemist. Secluded in his ancient manor house, with only their two servants for company, he fills her with knowledge and records every step she takes.

In the spring of 1725, when Emilie is eighteen, father and daughter begin their most daring alchemical adventure of all - an attempt to breathe life into dead matter. But their work is interrupted by the arrival of two strangers, one a researcher into the life of plants, the other a dazzling young merchant. During the course of a sultry August, whilst her father is away, Emilie is caught up in the passion of first love and, listening for the first time to her heart rather than her head, she makes her choice…with consequences that are far-reaching and tumultuous.
While the story really isn't anything new. A story of a women who makes a choice to love over her fathers wishes. And comes to realize just how much her father meant to her. Overall I liked the premise and kept wondering how it would all end if her husband would turn out to be a user, if she would find peace with her choices. 4 out of 5

Alice Munro, Too Much Happiness

10 Short Stories that left me wondering.... I found all the stories to be about sad parts of life. Of course life isn't just wine and roses but I generally like my books to be balanced, some happiness, some trials and tribulations. Munro does a wonderful job of making her case that events in our early years shape our lives. We all change and must except people for who they are at the time. 3 out of 5 stars.

Where Serpents Sleep, By C.S. Harris

Blurb: London, 1812. The brutal slaughter of eight young prostitutes in a house of refuge near Convent Garden leaves only one survivor—and one witness: Hero Jarvis, reform-minded daughter of the Prince Regent's cousin, Lord Jarvis. When the Machiavellian power broker squashes any official inquiry that might reveal his daughter's unorthodox presence, Hero launches an investigation of her own and turns to Sebastian St. Cyr, Viscount Devlin, for help. Still struggling to come to terms with the loss of his lover, Kat Boleyn, and the resultant estrangement from his father, Sebastian is at first reluctant to agree. But the callous violence of the murders—combined with the opportunity to provoke his archenemy, Jarvis—prompts him to act.
This is my favorite book and cover of the series. The book moves smoothly with characters true to their time period. Hero is a strong independent young women who is enjoyable to read about. I hope there will be more of these to read. 4.5 out of 5

Philippa Gregory, The White Queen

Description: Brother turns on brother to win the ultimate prize, the throne of England, in this dazzling account of the wars of the Plantagenets. They are the claimants and kings who ruled England before the Tudors.

The White Queen tells the story of a woman of extraordinary beauty and ambition who, catching the eye of the newly crowned boy king, marries him in secret and ascends to royalty. While Elizabeth rises to the demands of her exalted position and fights for the success of her family, her two sons become central figures in a mystery that has confounded historians for centuries: the missing princes in the Tower of London whose fate is still unknown. From her uniquely qualified perspective, Philippa Gregory explores this most famous unsolved mystery of English history, informed by impeccable research and framed by her inimitable storytelling skills.

While I think Gregory is an excellent story teller, I found this book to be a little over romantic. But overall a very good book about a women who is not written about all that much. I hope to see more books about her. 4 out of 5

C.S. Harris, When Gods Die

June, 1811. On a summer's evening at the Royal Pavilion in Brighton, the beautiful young wife of an aging Marquis is found dead in the arms of the Prince Regent himself. From her back protrudes a jeweled dagger that once belonged to Bonnie Prince Charlie. Around her neck lies an ancient blue stone and silver necklace said to have been worn by the Druid priestesses of Wales. Legend credited the necklace with mysterious powers—until it was lost at sea with its last owner, the mother of Sebastian St. Cyr, Viscount Devlin.
Second book in a series about a Nobel man with a heart. The story digs deeper into the mystery surrounding the hero's mother whom Devlin thought drowned off the coast of Brighton. It's now looking as if she lives, that she sailed away from her family. Leaving behind an 11 year old boy to a father that may not be his. The most interesting thing about Harris's writing to me is her layers of mystery that she is slowly building up to. She has created like able characters who are true to their time period. I did skip a few pages though but overall a good story. I keep reading because I care for her characters and want to know how the mysteries within will end. 4 out of 5

Girl in a Blue Dress by Gaynor Arnold

Blurb: At the end of her life, Catherine, the cast-off wife of Charles Dickens, gave the letters she had received from her husband to their daughter Kate, asking her to donate them to the British Museum, "so the world may know that he loved me once." The incredible vulnerability and heartache evident beneath the surface of this remark inspired Gaynor Arnold to write Girl in a Blue Dress. Arnold brings the spirit of Catherine Dickens to life in the form of Dorothea "Dodo" Gibson – a woman who is doomed to live in the shadow of her husband, Alfred, the most celebrated author in the Victorian world.
This book made me very thankful of what time period I live in. To have a husband set a wife asside as Dickens did is just so unimaginable to me. Gaynor does an excellent job of bringing the overly self involved Dickens to life. I read a great deal about Dickens before reading this book so I could see how Gaynor would weave fact with fiction. I only wish she would have had Dickens and the fictional Gibson's childhoods more the same. It would have made Dickens to be more understood of some of the things he did in life, how obsessed he was with work and providing for his family, and in some ways it would have made him even more selfish for casting off his unwanted wife. Overall and excellent first author book with a story that moves right along with well written characters. Gaynor lets us view through Victorian era window to visit with a family with a full range of emotions. 5 out of 5