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A Novel
by Caroline Lea
An evocative, haunting retelling of the summer that should have broken Mary Shelley, but instead inspired her to write her masterpiece.
Villa Diodati, Lake Geneva, 1816: the dark summer that birthed a monster.
Eighteen-year-old Mary Shelley has fled London with her lover, Percy Shelley, and her sister, Claire. Tormented by Shelley's betrayals, haunted by the loss of their baby, and suspicious of her sister's intentions, Mary seeks a refuge.
But Lord Byron's villa, lying under ominous, ash-shrouded skies, feels more like a trap. When Byron suggests each guest write a supernatural tale, Mary is as drawn to the challenge as she is, unexpectedly, to Byron himself.
And so an idea begins to form in her mind ... It spills out of her in thick, black ink. A thing given life by her imagination.
Day and night, it possesses her. Her heart, her desires.
But is she in control, or is it?
In this hauntingly evocative feminist retelling, Caroline Lea delves into the female rage, creative madness and steamy scandal that bore the world's most famous work of gothic fiction.
What are you reading this week? And what did you think of last week’s books? (10/16/2025)
I am reading Love, Sex and Frankenstein by Caroline Lea. She has made Byron, Shelley and Mary Shelley three of the most unlikeable characters in recent reads!! Really liked The River is Waiting (Wally Lamb) and All the Colors of the Dark. At my book club we were talking about our mothers not lett...
-Barbette_T
"Lea creates a world that is so vividly realized, it is astonishing to read. All her characters are wonderfully nuanced, and you cannot help but fall in love with Mary, whose journey as an artist and as a woman is both absolutely heartbreaking and truly inspiring. This is a deeply moving, magical book from a consummate storyteller." —Elodie Harper, bestselling author of The Wolf Den
"A magnificent book - raw, rage-filled and wondrous. A crackling, passionate story about Mary Shelley and the monsters we suppress. I loved it." —Anna Mazzola, author of The House of Whispers
"A deliciously dark reimagining of the birth of literature's greatest monster, Love, Sex & Frankenstein is at once a heartbreaking Gothic love story and a chilling study of rage, betrayal and the mysterious origins of the creative impulse. A triumph." —Emma Stonex, author of The Lamplighters
This information about Love, Sex, and Frankenstein was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Caroline Lea is the critically acclaimed author of The Glass Woman, The Metal Heart, and Prize Women. She lives in England.
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