Of Monsters and Madness

As soon I told the YA book club that Jessica had a new booking coming and that I could read some of to them you would have thought Christmas was here for them so we popped popcorn and before I knew I was into chapter three and we had to call it a day. I didn't think because of the setting and the Poe nature that all of them would enjoy it I was so wrong we've ordered electronic copies and hardback copies. What ever you do Jessica never stop writing we would have revolt on our hands at our library

Young Annabel Lee comes to stay at her father's house after her mother has passed. What she finds is a tortured man self absorbed in his work looking for a cure of a disease. Her grandfather is kind and tries to explain his son's obsession with the lab but as Annabel discovers the grisly truth she becomes pulled into it's dark secrets. There is a very unusual twist in that she meets a young writer, Edgar Allen Poe who is woven into the story in a very dramatic and morbid twist. Annabel must stop the grisly experiments and murders that are going on in that basement lab or she may be next. My thanks to the publisher for the advance on what is sure to be a hit with teens and adults looking for a classic horror story with a twist.

Fall is the season for everything creepy and crawly. It's during September and October that I most want to read atmospheric novels. Jessica Verday's new release OF MONSTERS AND MADNESS certainly lives up to the season. It's gothic and eerie, setting the mood on page one as it opens up a macabre, grisly scene.

After Annabel Lee's mother dies, she moves to the United States, where she moves in with the father she's never met and the grandfather she never even knew she had. But something dark and sinister is happening in Philadelphia and people are being murdered. Annabel Lee is safe only if she stays home...but with her father's strange experiments going on at night, is she as safe as she believes herself to be?

OF MONSTERS AND MEN uses elements from THE STRANGE CASE OF DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE by Robert Lous Stevenson and various Edgar Allen Poe pieces, especially his final poem "Annabel Lee." In fact, Annabel Lee is the novel's main character and Edgar Allen Poe plays a major role in the novel. (And I'll whisper to you that as I was reading, I kept having refrains of the song "Murder, Murder" from the Broadway musical Jekyll and Hyde in my head. Every time there was a new murder and the sordid details were revealed, I'd hear it all over again! (Go ahead and take a listen! There's also a visual video of the scene, complete with the dialogue cut from the song!)

If you're a fan of Megan Shepherd's THE MADMAN'S DAUGHTER (My Review) and its sequel HER DARK CURIOSITY, Verday's new tale will be right up your alley. These books belong next to one another on your bookshelf. Ironically, this past summer I read another book inspired by "Annabel Lee," ASHES ON THE WAVES by Mary Lindsey, though the two titles are wildly different from one another (My Review).

One really cool element of the novel, to me, that really embraced the mood was the backdrop of 1826 Philadelphia. From the moment Annabel Lee steps past Rittenhouse Square (Previously called Southwest Square until a recent renaming, teaching me new history about this city I've grown up taking advantage of) to the fact that Poe lived in the area (How did I never know this? Suddenly, I want to go exploring!), it enhanced my visual images of her surroundings because it was an area I was familiar with.

So if you want something to give you chills this season, OF MONSTERS AND MADNESS is the one to add to your list!