Hideous Love

(Hardback)

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Description

An all-consuming love affair.

A family torn apart by scandal.

A young author on the brink of greatness.

Hideous Love is the fascinating story of gothic novelist Mary Shelley, who as a teen girl fled her restrictive home only to find herself in the shadow of a brilliant but moody boyfriend, famed poet Percy Shelley. It is the story of the mastermind behind one of the most iconic figures in all of literature: a monster constructed out of dead bodies and brought to life by the tragic Dr. Frankenstein.

Mary wrote Frankenstein at the age of nineteen, but inspiration for the monster came from her lifethe atmospheric European settings she visited, the dramas swirling around her, and the stimulating philosophical discussions with the greatest minds of the period, like her close friend Lord Byron.

This luminous verse novel from award-winning author Stephanie Hemphill reveals how Mary Shelley became one of the most celebrated authors in history.

Reviews

"A . . . riveting portrait of the artist as a young woman." -- Kirkus Reviews

"This present-tense novel in verse provides an intimate glimpse into Mary's life...Readers will identify the parallels between the creation of a monster and the creation of her famous book. " -- School Library Journal

"An ideal companion piece for teens studying the original classic...Hemphill, author of the Printz Honor Book Your Own, Sylvia (2007), manages to plumb from it her own vein of riches." -- Booklist

"A gripping story" -- Publishers Weekly

Praise for WICKED GIRLS: "The expressive writing, masterful tension, and parallels to modern group dynamics create a powerful and relevant page-turner. " -- Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Praise for WICKED GIRLS: "An excellent supplementary choice for curricular studies of Arthur Miller's The Crucible, this will also find readers outside the classroom, who will savor the accessible, unsettling, piercing lines that connect past and present with timeless conflict and truths." -- ALA Booklist

Praise for WICKED GIRLS: "In subtle, spare first-person free-verse poems, the author skillfully demonstrates how ordinary people may come to commit monstrous acts. Haunting and still frighteningly relevant." -- Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

Author Bio

Stephanie Hemphill is also the award-winning author of Wicked Girls: A Novel of the Salem Witch Trials, a Los Angeles Times Book Prize finalist; Your Own, Sylvia: A Verse Portrait of Sylvia Plath, a Michael L. Printz Honor Book; Sisters of Glass; and Things Left Unsaid: A Novel in Poems. She lives in Chicago, Illinois.