Love & Other Monsters: A Novel

The forgotten story of a young woman who inspired love, lust, art, and betrayal, from the bestselling author of The Lioness of Boston.During the dangerous summer storms of 1816, a group of famous young writers gathered at a mansion on the shores of Lake Geneva, Switzerland. Brilliant Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, her fiery fiancé Percy Shelley, the famously promiscuous Lord Byron, and John Polidori, his sexually tormented personal physician. At the group’s center was Claire Clairmont, Mary’s impressionable, clever, and dangerously loyal stepsister.Those months of desire and scandal gave the world the works of Frankenstein, the modern vampire, and the mythic image of these Romantic literary giants. In this intense and propulsive story, Claire tries to solve the mystery of why she was all but erased from history.Fueled by Jane Austen’s romantic novels, and believing love offers freedom, Claire begins an affair with celebrity Lord Byron and convinces Mary and Shelley to follow him to Switzerland. With the threat of paparazzi lurking nearby, Claire’s intimate connection to each member of the celebrity group grows more complex. Their escapade takes a darker turn as each traveler is forced to contend with their own secrets and betrayals.With searing relevance to our here and now—of celebrity worship, climate disaster, of complicated femininity, Love & Other Monsters is the untold origin story of Frankenstein, a feminist reckoning of sisters, survival, and the creation of monsters—both those on the page and those who walk among us. Read more