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"""A beautiful, hallucinatory dream of a novel."" -J.M. Miro, Author of the National Bestseller Ordinary Monsters ""A fantastically moody, unsettling novel, with a teasing, enigmatic atmosphere entirely its own.""-Sarah Waters, New York Times bestselling author of The Paying Guests and Fingersmith An intensely gripping reimagining of Mary Shelley's youth, vividly exploring innocence, young love, gothic mystery and the roots of her literary masterpiece, Frankenstein. Switzerland, 1816. A volcanic eruption in Indonesia envelopes the whole of Europe in ash and cloud. Amid this ""year without a summer,"" eighteen-year-old Mary Shelley and her lover Percy Bysshe Shelley arrive at Lake Geneva to visit Lord Byron and his companion John Polidori. Anguished by the recent loss of her child, Mary spends her days in strife. But come nightfall, the friends while away rainy wine-soaked evenings gathered around the fireplace, exchanging stories. One famous evening, Byron issues a challenge to write the best ghost story. Contemplating what to write, Mary recalls another summer, when she was fourteen... Scotland, 1812. A guest of the Baxter family, Mary arrives in Dundee, befriending young Isabella Baxter. The girls soon spend hours together wandering through fields and forests, concocting tales about mythical Scottish creatures, ghosts and monsters roaming the lowlands. As their bond deepens, Mary and Isabella's feelings for each other intensify. But someone has been watching them--the charismatic and vaguely sinister Mr. Booth, Isabella's older brother-in-law, who may not be as benevolent as he purports to be... With gripping mastery and verve, Anne Eekhout brings to life a defining moment in Mary Shelley's youth: the creative wellspring for one of the most original, thrilling, and timeless pieces of literature ever written. Provocative, wonderfully atmospheric and pulsing with emotion, Mary and the Birth of Frankenstein is a hypnotic ode to the power of imagination. Translated from the Dutch by Laura Watkinson"

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Anne Eekhout is the author of the novels Dogma, which was nominated for the Bronzen Uil Prize for best debut; One Night, which was nominated for the BNG Literature Prize; and Nicolas and the Disappearance of the World, which was selected as the Best Book for Young Adults. She lives in the Netherlands. Laura Watkinson is a British literary translator who studied languages at St. Anne's College in Oxford. She has taught at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg and the University of Milan. Ell Potter is a voice talent and audiobook narrator who has won an AudioFile Earphones Award and was a finalist for the prestigious Audie Award for best mystery thriller narration.

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