Our Hideous Progeny: A thrilling Gothic Adventure

Product Information

He’s the go-to guy for such sensitive cases – his ex-girlfriend, now turned Titan, is the daughter of the man who discovered T7. It’s always wonderful to meet someone who feels like they truly love and understand your work, and Kirsty Dunseath is just such a someone. Mary is smart, andfeisty, but she is desperate to escape the shackles of her low-birth and makes rather unwise choices, and lands up with ahusband whose talents lie inmediocrity, spite, and making even more foolish choices.

She knows her uncle disappeared in mysterious circumstances in the Arctic but she doesn't know why or how. But gradually the dark side of the Panopticon, and the coercive ways an authoritarian government will use it, are chillingly revealed.I received a free electronic review copy of this title from the publisher via Edelweiss; the opinions are my own. Various scientific presentations, diner parties, conversations occur to hound in the fact that the 19th century was deeply misogynistic and racist.

I adored Mary, who’s character takes inspiration from not one but three impressive women of the 19th C: Mary Shelley, Mary Anning (the self-taught palaeontologist who found the first Ichthyosaur fossil) and Mary Somerville (one of the first women admitted into the Royal Astronomical Society), and really enjoyed discovering just how much of their stories connected to our refreshingly bold and sharp-tongued protagonist—especially Mary Anning, who seemed to have to the most in common with our plesiosaur-obsessed MC. Our Hideous Progeny is a sumptuous tale of ambition and obsession, of forbidden love and sabotage; a novel that blends classic, immersive storytelling with contemporary themes.It fit the setting of the book, but the pacing did take a beating because of that, and especially in the first half of the book it was difficult to look past that. Where I'm concerned, an author needs to engage the reader with plot, premise, characters and pacing and this one lacks all three. As Henry’s desire for fame grows, Mary must decide how far she is willing to go to protect the Creature she has grown to love. Instead of revivifying a human corpse, however, they decide—in the interest of both safety and science—to reanimate a Plesiosaurus.