Oliver lives his “life” locked up in an abandoned castle, with only Alasdair’s infrequent visits to sustain him. But Alasdair and his father must work in secret, because creating clockwork people is illegal, and they are constantly on the run, afraid of being caught and thrown in jail.īut in this life of secrets, Alasdair has an even bigger one: two years ago, he brought his dead brother Oliver back from the dead with clockwork gears and a set of pulse gloves, and his parents don’t know about it.
Alasdair works in his father’s toy shop, but in the back of the store is a secret workshop where his father makes clockwork limbs for men and women who have lost arms and legs in the recent French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars, and he fuses his clockwork creations to flesh with surgery and electricity. The story takes place in 1818 Geneva, Switzerland. (And her Author’s Note at the end shouldn’t be missed!) It’s one of those famous stories that begs to be written about, which is one reason I’m sure Lee tackled this subject. If you haven’t heard the story of how Mary Shelley came to write her seminal novel, then you’re missing out.
In fact, it’s an alternate history of how the book may have been written, and because I’m a book lover, of course I was fascinated with Mackenzi Lee’s ability to weave parts of the real story of Frankenstein with her fictional version. I was intrigued by this story that incorporates not only a Frankenstein-like character, brought back to life with clockwork gears and electricity, but the famous book Frankenstein as well. “You’re either good, or you’re clever.” This is the running theme throughout this very imaginative Frankenstein story, and main character Alasdair Finch believes every word of it. We looked mad, Mary and I, exactly the sort of people who would be digging up corpses and resurrecting them in a clock tower. We were a sight, the pair of us, Mary with her muddy dress and wild hair, me with the knees torn out of my trousers, braces unfastened, and my shirt smeared with blood.
Mary was kneeling on the other side of Oliver’s body, her face still spattered with cemetery dirt. The nitty-gritty: A clever story of alternate history that answers the question, “What led Mary Shelley to write Frankenstein?” Published by Katherine Tegen Books on September 22 2015 This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review. I received this book for free from the Publisher in exchange for an honest review.
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