'The Alchemist's Daughter' Is No Frankenstein's Monster
Theodora Goss's novel takes bits and pieces from several different monstrous mythologies — Jekyll and Hyde, Dr. Moreau and more — but she makes something new and deceptively intricate out of them.
Mary Jekyll has never been more alone. Her father, Dr. Henry Jekyll, died 14 years ago, and her mother Ernestine has just passed away after going mad. Living in London in the 1890s, she's subject to the era's discrimination against women, which she confronts while trying to get her family's affairs in order. She soon realizes she's destitute — but her mother has left her clues to a bank
