The Madman's Daughter (The Madman's Daughter #1)

What I Loved:

I hardly know where to start gushing about this book. Full disclosure: I'm a huge fan of classic Gothic novels! THE MADMAN'S DAUGHTER (a retelling of Wells' The Island of Dr. Moreau) reads like a classic Gothic novel but with more relatable characters for the modern reader. This book has to be taken as a whole, not broken into bits and pieces, because it is a surreal, tense, dark experience from the first word to the very last.

Let's start with the setting. Absolutely perfect. And I don't just mean the time period. I mean Juliet's job at King's College, where she works as a maid at the beginning of the book, to the ship she travels on to get to her missing father, to the island of lush beauty and horrific terrors--all of it works on every level. The setting is a character in the book, and it adds to the atmospheric tension that pervades every page.

The characters are exactly what a Gothic novel needs. Secretive, damaged, pawns and predators ... and all of them seen through the eyes of Juliet, who is a flawed narrator (as all of us are) because of her background, her emotional wounds and fears, and her terrible certainty that the insanity that grips her father is coming for her next. I especially enjoyed Juliet's intense scientific curiosity, and her unflinching courage. She's a heroine worth rooting for.

We see the two boys who are interested in Juliet from her eyes only, and so we get them in glimpses and pieces as they stand out to her or as they come in contact with her. It isn't the simple, straightforward romance of modern books. It's a romance struggling to unfold in an era where women are dressed in silk and expected to marry men they barely know, and it takes place on an island where that convention holds steady even while horror is playing out in the background.

I realize some readers will see Juliet, Montgomery, and Edward as a love triangle, but I do not. Instead, I see it as Juliet caught between the boy she trusted as a child and the boy who reflects her inner torment as if he's being tormented too. Once truths begin to be revealed, the lack of a love triangle becomes even more apparent. Ms. Shepherd did an admirable job of delivering flawed, nuanced characters within the confines of her first person narrative, and I enjoyed the journey very much.

Finally, the plot. The atmospheric darkness in the book kept me feeling off-balance and uneasy for the entire story. That is a true testament to skilled writing and a solid plot. I was constantly searching for the wrong note, the lie, the slip-up that would unveil someone's secret because, like Juliet, I was absolutely sure there was more going on than I could see. The plot builds with the kind of delicious tension that keeps a reader turning pages, and the climax kept me absolutely riveted. When I finally turned the last page, I just sat and stared at a wall for a while because I needed time to process what I'd just experienced.

What Left Me Wanting More:

Nothing. This was a perfect-for-me book. It's worth mentioning that for those who are unfamiliar with the original book, or who are younger or more sensitive readers, there are two scenes with brief cruelty to animals. The scenes are integral to the plot rather than being gratuitous, and as a fierce animal lover myself, I found that they heightened my distress for Juliet and my certainty that her situation was increasingly precarious.

Final Verdict:

THE MADMAN'S DAUGHTER is a lovely Gothic story whose nuanced characters, atmospheric tension, and skillful prose combine to create an experience that will stay with the reader long after the last page is turned.

My review style is, and always will be, to write up my review right after I complete the book, and I do mean right after. If I can't write the review, I will save the last chapter until I have time. Doing otherwise would allow me to slack off, and I would never get anything reviewed, as well as giving me time to forget the book. The downside of this reviewing method, one I just have to accept, is that occasionally I have to try to compose a meaningful, coherent review while shell-shocked by what I've just read. Bear with me, as The Madman's Daughter definitely left me feeling a bit dazed.

On a lot of levels, I'm really not entirely sure just how I felt about this novel. One thing that I do know quite for sure is that Shepherd writes well. Her syntax and diction dovetail with the historical setting, and never once threw me out of the book. Though much of the novel consists more of suspense than outright action, Shepherd kept the story tense and me on the edge of my couch.

Littered throughout The Madman's Daughter are literary references. Of course, the novel itself retells H.G. Wells' The Island of Dr. Moreau, which I have not read. However, my perusal of the Wikipedia article convinces me that Shepherd reworked the story with a deft hand. In addition to this, she sprinkled in numerous references to Shakespeare, including The Tempest, a very apt work to be brought up in this instance. There is even a reference to X-Men, though not, obviously, so overt of one, since it didn't exist back then.

What I found myself utterly unprepared for was how utterly dark, gruesome, creepy and horrifying this book is. Had I read Wells' work, I would have been better informed of the coming experience, but I knew nothing. Yes, the cover hints at creepiness, but this turned out to be one of the scariest books I have ever read. Of course, suspense has always been my weak point, as well as some other issues that I'll tackle next. Shepherd hits most of the staple varieties of horror: not knowing who to trust, fearing darkness with in oneself, mad science, gore, suspense, chases and more. Were I a big reader of horror, I do not know that I would have marked this as a must-read, but, let me tell you guys, you want this.

However, I know a lot of people, myself included, have a big issue with animal death in novels. For me, kill a human and I'm rarely bothered; kill a furry, adorable creature and I will ugly cry. An animal dies in an awful way in chapter two, and over the last half of the novel focuses on just vicious, awful things done to animals in the name of science. Again, were I familiar with Dr. Moreau, I would have known, but... If you're seriously concerned, my recommendation would be to read Wells' novel or a summary of it online, because I suspect Shepherd's is darker than the original, based on my sole Wells experience.

Juliet Moreau has a lot of sass and she made a delightful main character. I rooted for her along the way, which only made the horror that much more terrifying. Juliet's father, the infamous Dr. Moreau died, and, eventually, her mother did as well, leaving her to the charity of family. Unfortunately, her extended family turns out not to be at all charitable. Pulling on an old connection of her father's, she manages to obtain work at King's College as a maid, sunk low in prospects and station. At the college, Juliet is sexually harassed in the first chapter. I worried about whether she would have enough spunk to be an interesting main character, but, believe me, this girl holds her own once she is not trying to keep her job anymore.

Shepherd also excelled at Dr. Moreau, who fits the mad scientist role to a T. Not really a spoiler because obviously: he's actually alive. He also very much comes across as a man of the time period. So many historical novels depict most of the characters as rather modern with regards to women's rights, particularly those appealing to female readers. Dr. Moreau has no such conceptions, believing women are to be married to the men their fathers say, and that they should do nothing but needlework and piano playing until that time comes. Juliet, feisty and clever, struggles against how he wishes her to behave.

Sadly, I was not so fond of her love interests, Montgomery and Edward. Yup, a love triangle strikes again, though not one of the most annoying ones. I will credit Shepherd with not making it insanely obvious which man would be her choice, and with making both of them very obviously flawed, though neither one ranked as swoon-worthy for me. The love triangle reminded me somewhat of that in Griffin's Masque of the Red Death, though I felt a bit more sure in The Madman's Daughter which guy would win in the end. However, the ending did surprise me, so bonus points for that.

Do not let the lovely cover fool you: The Madman's Daughter is horror through and through. Though not for the faint of heart, Shepherd has constructed a well-written and clever retelling, sure to delight fans of creepy tales.