Something I loved about The Strange Case of the Alchemist’s Daughter was the sense of humour. The characters’ senses of humour are a testament to how well the characters work. They’re fully realized, with their own quirks and hang-ups. I liked getting to know them all through their humour as well.

There is a kind of self-referential humour to The Strange Case of the Alchemist’s Daughter — if the book wasn’t so good (and it is so good — I’m right there with the other reviewers on this one), there is a certain ridiculousness to the premise that, at it’s worse, is more cringey than fun. Characters from unrelated beloved series’ meeting in unlikely circumstances is not a new framework, but Goss does it well on multiple levels. I got the distinct feeling that Goss understands that by blending stories together she has taken a risk.

Goss is asking the reader to suspend their disbelief (as speculative fiction does) and conceive of a world where the diverse stories she is taking cues from could not only exist within the same fictional universe but would also interact in the way she is asserting. First, she, for the most part, focuses on characters that are often not directly central to the inspiration material, or even present. This lateral move means she has more space to create a story that still agrees with the source material, and she does it with great humour. That Goss can maintain a sense of fun along with some of the heavier topics in The Strange Case of the Alchemist’s Daughter is a feat in and of itself. I am looking forward to reading the next volume in this series, European Travel for the Monstrous Gentlewoman.

~Skye Walker

This book hit all the marks in both suspense and fantasy. This is my first book by this author; it will not be the last. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle fans will love this book.

"Based on some of literature’s horror and science fiction classics, this is the story of a remarkable group of women who come together to solve the mystery of a series of gruesome murders—and the bigger mystery of their own origins.

Mary Jekyll, alone and penniless following her parents’ death, is curious about the secrets of her father’s mysterious past. One clue in particular hints that Edward Hyde, her father’s former friend and a murderer, may be nearby, and there is a reward for information leading to his capture…a reward that would solve all of her immediate financial woes."

Always willing to take a risk on a Jekyll and Hyde retelling.

I’m kind of iffy about this book. Because on the one hand, it feels like a fun and light Sherlock Holmes adventure that you can really enjoy, but at the same, the levity is exactly what keeps the mystery from ever delving deeper into its implications, and that left me feeling rather thirsty for more complexity as a result.

For example, although Mary Jekyll is the central protagonist, her personal stakes regarding her lunatic father are rarely addressed in the story, and I was rather peeved by that; I thought the finale at the very least would rectify this with some acknowledgement of Mary’s personal dilemma, yet it chooses to leave this matter almost fully untouched, and that left much to be desired in terms of character development.

Furthermore, in light of introducing too many new characters along the way, there’s a lot of fourth-wall breaking in this book. Character interject in this story as though they themselves are the narrator, and it was rather jarring at times as they spoil things in advance for you or make funny comments in grave situations. And especially considering that these jokes were coming from the victims’ POV, the levity often felt misplaced and the depth to these characters stymied in retrospect.

Bottom line, this book reads more like a campy sitcom than a murder mystery. It’s certainly written very well with great banter, witty prose and upbeat characters, but the author tends to deflate all sense of urgency by choosing to make the jokes the highlight of the book, and I came out feeling rather ambivalent about it as a result.

My interview with Theodora Goss appeared yesterday at the Washington Independent Review of Books:

http://www.washingtonindependentreviewofbooks.com/features/an-interview-with-theodora-goss

The novelist talks feminism, fairytales, and Victorian monsters


At first glance, Theodora Goss’ debut novel, The Strange Case of the Alchemist’s Daughter, is a mash-up genre novel in the vein of the TV show “Penny Dreadful” or the graphic novel The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. The cast Goss works with includes cameos from iconic characters from classic gothic fiction and the mystery plot concerns the gruesome murders of women in the backstreets of London.

However, The Strange Case of the Alchemist’s Daughter is multi-layered and much more subversive than the “elevator pitch” blurb might lead one to believe. For starters, it focuses on the women of such novels as Frankenstein, The Island of Dr. Moreau, and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, among others. Goss gives life, voice, and agency to a cast of female monsters barely hinted at in the original texts.

The main protagonist of the novel is Mary Jekyll (a character invented by Goss), the daughter of the famous shape-shifting doctor. As she is going through the papers of her recently deceased mother, she finds references to a mysterious society of alchemists which, in turn, leads her to meeting the daughters of mad scientists. Some of these “daughters” are the monstrous creations of their fathers, and all of the women are caught up in a most fiendish plot.

Revisionist retellings are very hot right now. I’m thinking of the cable show “Penny Dreadful” and graphic novels like The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. What inspired you to do your own take?

I love both The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and “Penny Dreadful,” although I consciously limited my reading/viewing of both because I didn't want them to influence my interpretation. What really inspired me was reading the original texts for my Ph.D. in English literature. I wrote a doctoral dissertation on late-19th-century gothic fiction and started noticing that there were a lot of mad scientists running around in the 19th century — and that a lot of those mad scientists either thought of creating or actually created female monsters.

Early in the century, we have Victor Frankenstein almost creating a female monster as a mate for his male monster, then destroying her for fear that they might have monstrous children. In Nathaniel Hawthorne's short story "Rappaccini's Daughter," Dr. Rappaccini makes his own daughter poisonous. Her breath can kill, and her touch burns.

The infamous Dr. Moreau creates a vivisected Beast Woman out of a puma on his remote island — she kills him, and is also killed in the process. There are also some less well-known examples, like Dr. Raymond in Arthur Machen's The Great God Pan, whose experiments result in the birth of Helen, a deadly creature who can channel forces from beyond the rational world. I thought, what's up with all these mad scientists? Why do they keep creating or almost creating female monsters? And perhaps most importantly, why do all these female monsters die?

I mean, in late-19th-century fiction, monsters in general die, but there's a sense that female monsters are even more deadly than their male counterparts. And some of them, like Frankenstein's female monster and the Puma Woman, get no speaking lines. Unlike Frankenstein's monster, whose narrative takes up a significant portion of the novel, they never get to tell their own stories. I wanted to hear those stories, but no one had written them…so I figured I would.

What drew you to explore the stories of these particular Victorian female monsters?

They were my favorites! I've always been fascinated by Beatrice Rappaccini. Who wouldn't be fascinated by a beautiful woman who is also poisonous — whose beauty is, in fact, created by her toxicity? Giovanni, the narrator of her story, is certainly fascinated by her. With Frankenstein's female monster and Moreau's Puma Woman, my motivation was part anger and part curiosity. The first didn't even get to exist! The second was essentially tortured in the process of becoming human, then killed off to serve the narrative. That seemed so unfair.

Those were the origins of my characters Beatrice Rappaccini, Justine Frankenstein, and Catherine Moreau. The other two central characters in the novel, Mary Jekyll and Diana Hyde, don't appear in Robert Louis Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde; I added them. I did so because I noticed something strange in the story. First, it has almost no female characters — a maid and a housekeeper, that's about it. Second, Hyde himself is presented as symbolically female: Jekyll describes the process of turning into Hyde as "unmanning," and Hyde is described as hysterical (a term associated with women in the 19th century).

Third, all the theatrical and film versions I'm aware of add female characters, typically love interests (a fiancée for the upright Jekyll, a prostitute for the degenerate Hyde). I thought, there's something going on here, something hidden in this text. I decided that for my novel, that hidden thing would be daughters. After all, if the other mad scientists of 19th-century literature created monstrous progeny, why not Jekyll and Hyde?

Tell us a little about your background, particularly your connection to the DC area.

I actually grew up around DC. I'm an immigrant: my mother left what was then communist Hungary, behind the Iron Curtain, when I was 5 years old. We lived in Belgium for two years, then moved to the United States. My mother was a research scientist who was working at the National Institutes of Health, so we lived in Bethesda. Later, when she entered private practice as a pediatrician, we lived in Arlington, and then moved out to Loudon, and finally moved in to Fairfax. So I lived all over the DC suburbs. On weekends, we would drive into the city and go to all the amazing museums around the Mall. When I moved away from DC for law school (after college at the University of Virginia), I suddenly realized that most museums charge entry fees! Boy, that was a real bummer. I don't think I would have gotten the cultural education I did growing up if it were not for the wonderful DC museums.

You teach classes in fairytales and folklore at Boston University. In what way are fairytales feminist texts?

Some are, and some aren't — it depends on the tale and the version of the tale. For example, I would not call the Charles Perrault and Brothers Grimm versions of “Little Red Riding Hood” feminist tales. The Perrault version, in which Little Red is eaten by the wolf, is a cautionary tale for aristocratic young ladies, warning them against seductive male courtiers at the court of Louis XIV. The Grimm version, in which Little Red and her grandmother escape with the help of a huntsman, is a story for the daughters of the German bourgeoisie, teaching them the virtues of punctuality and obedience.

But if you trace the story back to its folk origins, it does become a feminist tale: In the oral "Story of Grandmother," the girl tricks the wolf and runs away, saving herself. In some versions, she is helped by laundresses at the river, who hold up the sheets they are washing so she can run over them, while they let the wolf drown. In general, older folk versions tend to focus more on clever heroines. If you think about it, the folk who told those oral tales needed to be clever to survive — they valued trickery and pluck.

For Perrault's audience, a woman's value was determined by her virtue: hence the frightening lesson that the wolf might eat you up. The Grimms were writing for a middle class in which girls were expected to listen and obey their parents. That said, in the Grimm version, there is a second story we often don't hear: After grandmother and Little Red are saved by the huntsman, they return home. Along comes a second wolf, but they have learned their lesson: Little Red tricks him into drowning himself in water that her grandmother used to cook sausage.

So the feminist message persists after all — we just don't transmit it to our children. If anyone complains that modern writers are rewriting fairytales to add feminist messages, tell them those messages were there in many of the oldest versions! It's not updating the tales, but taking them back to their origins.

What can we expect in the thrilling next installment?

In the second book, my characters must travel to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, where they will once again confront the Société des Alchimistes. I don't want to give too much away, but it was a lot of fun to research. I had to go to Vienna and Budapest, and try to imagine what those cities would have looked like in the 1890s, which was a period of tremendous change artistically, technologically, and politically.

For a while, in my head, I was calling the book Monsters with Baedekers (no, that's not what it's going to be called), and I actually have a Baedeker's guide to Austria-Hungary from that time period. It was very helpful when I wanted to know the exchange rate between francs and krone! The second book will introduce some new characters that I loved writing about — hopefully people will be interested in reading about them!

Craig Laurance Gidney is the author of the collections Sea, Swallow Me & Other Stories (Lethe Press, 2008), Skin Deep Magic (Rebel Satori Press, 2014), and the YA novels Bereft (Tiny Satchel Press, 2013) and The Nectar of Nightmares (Dim Shores, 2015). He lives in his native Washington, DC. Find him on Instagram, Tumblr, and Twitter at @ethereallad.

Theodora Goss's writing drew me so far into the story that I could barely come up for air. What an incredible talent -- I felt like I was reading music, as though her paragraphs were notes in a song that lasted hours. It was beautiful.

The Strange Case of the Alchemist's Daughter, by Theodora Goss, Saga Press is a delightful amalgam and homage to characters dear to lovers of Victorian-era literature, including Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Robert Lewis Stevenson, Mary Shelley, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Bram Stoker. First of all – Theodora Goss. If you don’t know her breath-takingly wonderful short fiction, drop everything and read some. We’ll wait. Okay, ready to talk about her novel?
We begin with young, well-mannered, brilliant Mary Jekyll – yes, that Jekyll, her father – alone in his old house (except for the ever-faithful housekeeper, Mrs. Poole) and at the end of her financial rope. Chance and the hope of a small bequest brings her into contact with her hellfire and rapscallion adolescent half-sister, Diana Hyde. Before long, the two team up with Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, hot on the trail of whoever is murdering young women in the alleys of London and surgically removing various body parts. The mystery brings them into contact with Catherine Moreau (that Moreau, a panther turned woman), Renfield, Justine Frankenstein (who is so gentle, she’s a vegetarian pacifist), and “poison lady” Beatrice Rappaccini, among others. The true delight of the novel, however, arises from the interruptions by the characters themselves, often arguing over who should tell which part of the story and how it should be told. At first, we do not know who all these women are, but as the tale unfolds, we see their own experiences and personalities reflected in their sometimes witty, sometimes impudent, but always affectionate squabbles.

If you’ve ever wondered what a mishmash retelling of Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Rappaccini’s Daughter, The Island of Doctor Moreau, Frankenstein AND Sherlock Holmes would be like – this is the book for you. I don’t think you have to be familiar with any of the inspirations for this novel to enjoy it though. I’m only vaguely familiar with the last two I mentioned and still enjoyed it immensely.

What I loved most about this novel was the characters & the found family aspect. I am a sucker for found family stories, always. Make it a murder mystery solving monstrous girl gang and I am HERE. FOR. IT. The characterization is extremely well done. All of the girls are smart and tough in their own ways. They each have their own unique voice and brings their own talents (and issues) to the table. They are flawed, realistically written women who make it impossible not to root for them.

I have mixed feelings about the writing itself. While I loved the characters & the overall story, the execution left a lot to be desired. A lot of this had to do with the pacing which was fairly inconsistent. I also didn’t really love the method of telling the story after the fact in the format of Catherine writing a novel. I found a lot of the asides distracting as they pulled me out of the story I wanted to be reading about. It also removed any sense of fear or urgency for the main characters which I think is kind of necessary for a mystery.

If you enjoy history, murder, girl gangs and monsters than this book should definitely be on your TBR.

The Strange Case of the Alchemist’s Daughter by Theodora Goss is about monsters and about women, and how they can be the same thing. I think if you like Karen Joy Fowler’s work, you might like this, and also if you love meta and revisionist tales and/or things set in Victorian England and relating to the stories of the nineteenth century. Goss works with female creations of fictional scientists (or hypothetical female creations/daughters) from The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Frankenstein, The Island of Dr. Moreau, and “Rappaccini’s Daughter” by Nathaniel Hawthorne (which I have not read). Also, Holmes and Watson are in it, because of course they are. But overall, this is a meta novel, periodically festooned with commentary from the female characters about themselves, their stories, how their stories are told, and the idea of what a novel should be and how it should be written. And besides all that, it was fun.

"With pockets, women could conquer the world! " One of the most importat sentances in a book chock ful of surprises and delights on each page.

I admit the idea of a mashup of classic horror stories is what initially drew me to this book. However, after reading it I don't quite get the hype around it. Yes, this is a mix of Sherlock Holmes and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Yes, there are parts of it that I really enjoyed (mainly the parts with Sherlock Holmes). Unfortunately, for the most part this book lacked that certain something that I love from the original texts. Plus it bored me to tears for the most part.
I was so disappointed because I really wanted to love this book. The plot moves excruciatingly slow and when things would start to interest me I kept getting pulled out of the story with the annoying side conversations the characters were having within the text. I just could not get into it.

The Strange Case of the Alchemist’s Daughter is a delightful amalgamation of all the great gothic fiction stories of the 18th and 19th century–think The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Frankenstein and a bit of The Island of Doctor Moreau twisted up with a secret society doing questionable scientific experiments on young girls. A big dark and twisted, the author, Theodora Goss is able to keep the story from getting too creepy, too gross and too dark. Believe it or not there is quite a bit of humor in The Strange Case of the Alchemist’s Daughter.

Following the adventures of Mary Jekyll (the Alchemist’s Daughter) and her band of merry misfits, Goss ties together some of the most well known fictional characters into a delightful romp through Victorian England in the tradition of Sherlock Holmes. In fact, Mr. Holmes and his pal, Mr. Watson, even make an appearance to help Mary solve the disappearance of her father, Dr. Jekyll, and the murders reminiscent, for modern readers, anyway, of the Jack the Ripper Murders.

Too keep the story from getting too dark and heavy, Goss tells the story through the eyes of Mary and her friends after their adventure is complete. Goss allows them to break into the narrative, as if she was sitting in the room with them taking down the story, and give additional background about themselves and the story. She breaks the fourth wall in an effort to make the multitude of characters coming together less confusing as each character is able to have a distinct voice while Mary is the main character in the narrative bringing everyone together. At the beginning of the novel this storytelling technique was fun and witty, as to story continued, it became annoying almost like a commercial in the middle of your favorite show as some of the same arguments and discussions were had over and over again. The fourth wall break-ins took over the story at the end leaving an dissatisfying conclusion to the overall story.

The Strange Case of the Alchemist’s Daughter is certainly a delightful romp through some of literature’s greatest hits. The unique storytelling approach of allowing the characters to break the fourth wall and share more of their thoughts and feelings helps in creating clear voices for the many characters Goss brings together, but she does lean on this device a bit much at the conclusion of the novel much to the disappointment of any reader looking for a satisfying conclusion.

The Strange Case of the Alchemist’s Daughter is a wonderful book for any reader who has contemplated what would happen if some of their favorite fictional characters gathered under one roof and on an adventure together.

This was a very good idea. I loved the concept of the daughters of the monsters in Victorian Era classic novels. However, I didn't like the comments in the story. It made the plot harder to follow because it distracted me from the article plot and characters. Still, it was a fun read.

I very much enjoyed this book. The narrative device was particularly fun, as it really allowed the characters' personalities to shine through. I deeply appreciated that a number of different ways to be a woman, all equally valid, are displayed, and that the women value each other's friendship so obviously.

The mystery is fun, although some parts are not especially mysterious. I felt like the version of Sherlock Holmes in this book felt reasonable, and his and Watson's interactions were just as entertaining as they ought to be.

This is a good book for someone looking for: female friendships, fantasy of manners, retellings/mashups, fantasy/mystery crossovers, or just a good romp that leaves you feeling refreshed in between heavier books.

‘The Strange Case of the Alchemist’s Daughter’ follows, Mary Jekyll. Mary is Dr. Jekyll’s daughter (of Dr.Jekyll and Mr. Hyde). She decides to explore her father’s mysterious past.
I found this concept totally enthralling. Taking the story of ‘Dr.Jekyll and Mr. Hyde’ and expanding on it. It also added well-known literary characters along the way, such as the daughters of Dr. Moreau and Rappaccini.
Even though the characters were not original to the story, I loved the unique spin that Goss gave them. I kept wondering which charter would be introduced next. It also made me want to read the classic novels that ‘TSCotAD’ is based on.
I did like most of the characters. I didn’t like the character of Sherlock homes in this book. I felt like he was just a catalyst to involve the girls in a murder investigation. Also, the whole thing with Justine’s story seemed forced. Like the author was forcing an alternate story then what was originally written by Mary Shelley in ‘Frankenstein’
.
I loved the overall feeling of the story. Gothic and a bit dark without being too scary. Very Penny dreadful like.
I’m didn’t really like the future dialogue that was interjected into the story-line. It felt like it was side tracking the story. I would find myself forgetting what happened before the dialogue began and would have to go back and reread to remember.
There was also a lot going on in this book. There was a lot of running around. A lot of characters. A lot of background stories. I felt some of this could have been paired down a bit to help the story flow a little better.
The story was funny and endearing and just an all together fun read. One that you don’t need to have read the classics behind it to understand what is happening. Though different that what I expected. I did enjoy it.

Received in exchange for a honest review.

This is so fun. Entertaining, has snark, and highly imaginative. I love how all these women are not as you would think. They are close knit once they find each other and carve a path on their own despite their parentage and what era they are in.

Theodora goss has taken the idea of monsters and turned it on it’s head. She takes common fictional characters we all know and some we are afraid of and makes them relatable, funny in some cases and real. I love how all these scientists are linked and we see the struggles some went through with doing what they felt was morally wrong. I think this is what we see in the case of Jeckyll/Hyde. But add Holmes into the picture with all these scientists to help solve the crimes is just a hoot.

Each woman is strong and independent. They have all been dealt with a lot in their life but carved a way to survive and thrive. They didn’t turn into what was expected but became more. For Mary Frankenstein she was kind and artistic. Mary Jeckyll was resilient and loving. She was strong and found her way. She accepted everyone in with a open heart and was understanding and supportive. Rapucini’s daughter was sweet and resilient. They were all fighters but had kind souls as well. Watching them solve the mysteries in front of them and have more to solve is so entertaining.

We have secret reveals, societies that are dangerous and mysterious, women who are strong and resilient, snarky moments, fun moments and sweet moments. We get a crush started I think and women finding their way and finding a family with each other.

I love how Theodora goss has the book being written by the characters as they are recalling it but as this is occurring they inject and infuse it with their own thoughts about what the other was thinking at the time things were occurring. This is so highly entertaining, engrossing and fun. To see the scientists daughters who were dealt hard decks in life come out strong and find each other but also give us a great story to boot was great. Theodora goss does a great job in balancing the fun, snark,danger and entertainment so it keeps you wanting to learn more and see more of these characters in the future.

The Strange Case of the Alchemist's Daughter is one of the best books I've read. Ever. And, I've read gazillions. I have never read Theodora Goss previously. And, now.. I cannot believe that I had not stumbled upon her works before. What a fantastic, imaginative, superbly well written story! The characters were so well written.. that one becomes a mouse in the corner watching all of the events as they go along. The pace is perfect. The characters are perfect. This will become a beloved series. One that I'm happy to have found from the start!

I love the concept.. of all of the various "daughters" of the 1890's well-known literary characters coming to life. Dr. Jekyll, Mr. Hyde, Moreau, Frankenstein, etc.. Toss in some other literary characters.. Sherlock and Dr. Watson, Renfield, Van Helsing and Jack the Ripper. Murders and mayhem. This story will suck you in.. and you WILL savor every delightful morsel!

I highly recommend reading this book. I look forward to other books in the series. (it was somewhat difficult to discern if the author intends upon this being a series... but, I do hope she does!) The language flows so easily. The mystery is slowly unraveled. The clues not so obvious. The characters become family within your mind.

There are some characters.. who's story was not written about.. I still need to know Renfield's involvement. And, of course.. what the heck becomes of .. Ohhhhhh.. You'll have to read this book to know whom I am speaking of.. hehe.

I've read several of Arthur Conan Doyle's original Sherlock Holmes works in the last few years, as well as The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson. In my college days (not long after the Victorian age) I also read Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and H.G. Wells' The Island of Dr. Moreau. Would it be sacrilege to say that I enjoyed this delightful pastiche and tribute to Holmes and other Victorian era fantasy better than most of the originals? What The Strange Case of the Alchemist’s Daughter lacks in literary depth, it makes up for in humor and accessibility.

Mary Jekyll, daughter of Dr. Jekyll, who has been gone for many years, is facing a penniless life on her own after her mother’s death. Mary comes across some mysterious papers in her mother’s desk that lead her to believe that Mr. Hyde may still be around (she has no idea he was her father’s alter ego). The reward for Hyde’s capture for his murder of Sir Carew many years ago is very appealing, but Mary’s not certain whether that the reward is still being offered, or who she can trust with her potentially valuable information. So she decides to go to 221B Baker Street, to enlist the help of Sherlock Holmes.

One thing leads to another, and gradually we assemble a very appealing and fascinating cast of characters: Diana Hyde, a wild and irrepressible 14 year old; Beatrice Rappaccini (from Nathaniel Hawthorne’s short story “Rappaccini's Daughter”), with poisonous breath and a burning touch; Catherine Moreau, a woman with disturbingly cat-like qualities; and Justine Frankenstein, an extremely tall and gentle woman who was assembled to be the bride of Frankenstein ― all women who might be considered monsters by society.

These young women, with the help of Sherlock Holmes and some additional characters (it’s nice to see a servant play a substantive role in the plot), work together to solve a series of creepy murders, in which young prostitutes have been found dead with various parts of their bodies missing. To make matters worse, the murders are tied to a secretive society of scientists, the Société des Alchimistes, to which all of these women have a connection as well.

The Strange Case of the Alchemist’s Daughter is, on a higher level, faithful to the Victorian era and the works that inspired, but takes some intriguing (and necessary) liberties with the original stories: Mary Shelley deliberately misled her readers when she wrote that Dr. Frankenstein had destroyed his woman creation before giving it life, and Beatrice relates a different ending to “Rappachini’s Daughter.” While these women are generally well-grounded in Victorian times, we see aspects of that society that often don’t appear in literature: Beatrice supports Votes for Women and Dress Reform, Justine’s deep religious faith is counterbalanced by Catherine’s atheism, Diana has been raised by prostitutes and mistrusts men on principle, and Mary finds herself wondering how much more women could accomplish if they were permitted to wear trousers.

These women are a diverse group, each with a distinct and memorable personality and unexpected talents. Though they’ve experienced rejection and cruelty in their lives, and some of them even sexual and other types of abuse, in the process of working together they find support and friendship. They eventually name their group the Athena Club (“We claim the wisdom of Athena, but we identify with her dubious parentage”). It’s refreshing to see these familiar stories through the eyes of the female characters, rather than the men who used and mistreated them.

The sometimes dark plot of The Strange Case of the Alchemist’s Daughter is lightened by the humorous banter between these women, especially as ― in a rather meta feature of the book ― they continually interrupt Catherine’s writing of their story with snarky comments and arguments about how the book is being written. These side conversations do sap a little of the tension from the story, since it’s clear that all of these young women have survived the investigation and are still together, but they add a fun and creative twist to the story.

Though a part of the mystery is resolved, there are lingering questions about the the Société des Alchimistes, and another mystery raises its head in the end. Here’s hoping for many more adventures and mysteries for the Athena Club!

If I had to describe this book in one word, it'd be "delightful." One of my favorite shows is Penny Dreadful, primarily because it mashes literary characters all together in one world, which is exactly what The Strange Case of the Alchemist's Daughter does. Though I didn't recognize all the references made to other classics, I did pick up on a few such as Jekyll & Hide, Sherlock Holmes, Frankenstein, and so on.

This book wasn't what I expected at all. The story starts off much as you would expect, the classic narrative, then suddenly the characters are jumping in with commentary as the story's being told! At first, I wasn't sure what to think about it but it soon became a source of humor as the women jumped in to correct the "author" on what actually happened and provide snippets of additional info. Y'all know I love a snarky character and these women had it in spades.

But what sold it for me is that this book kept to the classics while also re-inventing them. I felt as though I was reading Frankenstein (one of my favorites) or one of the many adventures of Sherlock Holmes. Goss creates a world that remains true to the original works but then spins it by introducing the daughters of some of the literary greats. You first meet Mary Jekyll, daughter of the infamous doctor. Diana Hyde comes in later, as well as another creation of Dr. Frankenstein, and even the famous Holmes and Watson duo. Each draws on their respective inspirations while bringing together a fun cast of fictional daughters.

I did have issues with the pacing a bit, more so at the end where the story sped up in contrast to the rest of it. Some of the commentary, while amusing, was at very inopportune moments that broke the tension of a scene or slowed it down. Or both. Then again, though this starts as what could be a thriller of sorts, it's quickly turned on its head and proved more of a humorous mystery type of book. 

I'll say that I didn't really read this one for the plot. While intriguing, the characters and their classical tie-ins were of more interest and if you enjoy where they all came from, I think you'll like this story as well. The unique style and different take on a "re-telling" of sorts made it a stand-out in the genre for me. The spin on monsters only added to this effect. Definitely recommend, and look forward to more by this author!