Victorian Monster

Hauntingly read by Justin Avoth. 'Robert Dinsdale mixes history and mythology with great panache . . . Richly textured and with an appropriately labyrinthine plot, this is a book that explores the monster inside man — and vice versa. Book of the Month' Sunday Times Man or monster? Hero or...

As a widower, Nathanial Durham has the monumental responsibility of finding suitable husbands for his two daughters. Bethany might have nearly anyone. Laynie is of especial concern to her father. Mr. Durham, lonely for intelligent companionship, hires a gentleman to read to him several nights a week, but Mr. Holbrook is off limits to his coquettish girls. With varying degrees of reluctance, they honor the agreement. At least Beth does for herself, but if it's possible, Mr. Holbrook might provide a distraction for her sister, Laynie.

Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, the book that changed the world. Published to coincide with the 200th anniversary of the publication of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and a movie starring Elle Fanning as Mary Shelley, Monster is a brilliant fictionalized biography akin to The Other Boleyn Girl. Two centuries ago this year, the young woman who invented science fiction was only 20 when she wrote the book that became Frankenstein. Mary Shelley said, “People ask how I, then a young girl, could think of, and dilate upon, so hideous subject?”