Romantic Gothic Detective Adventure--with Tea and Watercress Sandwiches

The Strange Case of the Alchemist's Daughter by Theodora Goss
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I thought this book was a lot of fun and a real pleasure to read in a genre, or combination of genres, that I admire. It's not just a creative story in an interesting setting; it's Victorian and Romantic characters, like Sherlock Holmes and Mary Jekyll and Justine Frankenstein, come to life and having an adventure together, solving a sort of Gothic mystery. Dr. Moreau's creations mix with the stories of Dracula and Jack the Ripper, while the daughter of Dr. Jekyll tries to uncover the truth behind her father's experimentations. So the novel is a blend of Gothic and Romantic and Steampunk and Detective and Pastiche.

With tea and feminism.

That's right up my alley. If the author could manage to get Emma or one of the Bennet girls in the story (despite the fact they'd be 100 or so) that would be great...

Mary Jekyll, a young woman who is somewhat modern but respectable, is trying to get on with life after her mother's death. Going through her mother's papers she encounters an expense she can't understand, and looking into it leads to new details about her long-missing father. Once she starts pulling that thread, she is drawn deeper into her father's world, discovering something called the Alchemists' Society and the terrifying scientific experiments being performed by its surviving members. Her investigation brings danger, new allies, and irregular meals, but also some exciting and entertaining adventure. The mostly female cast of characters get to defy expectations and act for themselves, and though Sherlock and Watson play their parts, they do not take over the action. The combination works nicely. The women are confident and capable suffragettes who namedrop Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, and they are struggling to get along in a society that discourages feminism (just imagine!) while trying to live their own lives. Though the novel is filled with elements of the fantastic, the setting is clearly Nineteenth Century London, and they have to deal with expectations as much as strange science.

I enjoy stories that reimagine characters from older novels, and the author here does a nice job of incorporating backstories and connections and making them fit together. The story is written as if it were a collaborative effort of the characters, and they sometimes insert themselves into the narrative, breaking the fourth wall rather like the grandfather and his sick grandson in Princess Bride. I liked how this worked, and found it comic in most cases, though I suspect others might react differently. In a novel that is already quite meta, I thought the intrusions fit with the tone and style. YMMV.

Book two is already out, and I want to know what happens with these women, as we're only just getting to know them in book one. And here's the title of the second: European Travel for the Monstrous Gentlewoman (The Extraordinary Adventures of the Athena Club Book 2). Who could turn away from a novel with such a title?

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