“Enthusiatic prose... A Spirited investigation of the bizarre times that inspired Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.” - Shelf Awareness (Starred Review)
“With a flair for both drama and detail, Montillo breathes her own kind of life into the story of the men determined to discover its very elements.” - Discover Magazine
“Spills the dirt on the making of the 19th-century novel--affairs, family drama, a lake house with Lord Byron!--and paints a grimly fascinating picture of the dissections and experiments in “animal electricity” that inspired the gothic tale.” - Mental Floss
“Montillo’s book is a welcome tribute to the literary, and especially the scientific, roots of the story.” - The Commercial Dispatch
“A welcome tribute to the literary, and especially the scientific, roots of the story.” - The Lady and Her Monsters
“A haunting picture of an era in which science and the arts overlapped, a perfect storm in which inspiration for “Frankenstein” could strike. Like a bolt of lightning.” - Washington Post
“Her narrative… rattles enjoyably through a lurid and restless landscape. … Equally a literary and a scientific endeavor.” - Wall Street Journal
“A delicious and enticing journey into the origins of a masterpiece.” - Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“Montillo achieves a freshness through her lively narrative approach and a fascination with long-ago science and its ethics that sparks across the pages.” - New York Times Book Review
“Montillo never loses sight of the fact that it was Mary Shelley’s imagination that sewed the pieces together - and provided the vital spark that keeps the tale alive nearly two centuries on.” - New Scientist