5 stars!
Book
Blurb:
“Henry Jekyll was a brilliant doctor, a passionate idealist who aimed to free mankind of selfishness and vice. He’s also the man who carelessly created a race of monsters.
Once shared secretly among the good doctor's inner circle, the Hyde drug was smuggled into mass-production - but in pill form, it corrupted its users at the genetic level, leaving them liable to transform without warning. A quarter of the population are now clandestine killers – ticking bombs that could detonate at any given moment.
It's 1903, and London has been quarantined for thirteen years.
Son of the city's most prominent physician and cure-seeker, seventeen-year-old Elliot Morrissey has had his own devastating brush with science, downing a potion meant to remove his human weaknesses and strengthen him against the Hydes - and finding instead he's become an empath, leveled by the emotions of a dying city.
He finds an unlikely ally in Iris Faye, a waitress at one of the city's rowdier music halls, whose emotions nearly blind him; her fearlessness is a beacon in a city rife with terror. Iris, however, is more than what she seems, and reveals a mission to bring down the establishment that has crippled the people of London.
Together, they aim to discover who's really pulling the strings in Jekyll's wake, and why citizens are waking up in the street infected, with no memory of ever having taken the Hyde drug...
Heart-eating monsters, it turns out, are not the greatest evil they must face.”
“Henry Jekyll was a brilliant doctor, a passionate idealist who aimed to free mankind of selfishness and vice. He’s also the man who carelessly created a race of monsters.
Once shared secretly among the good doctor's inner circle, the Hyde drug was smuggled into mass-production - but in pill form, it corrupted its users at the genetic level, leaving them liable to transform without warning. A quarter of the population are now clandestine killers – ticking bombs that could detonate at any given moment.
It's 1903, and London has been quarantined for thirteen years.
Son of the city's most prominent physician and cure-seeker, seventeen-year-old Elliot Morrissey has had his own devastating brush with science, downing a potion meant to remove his human weaknesses and strengthen him against the Hydes - and finding instead he's become an empath, leveled by the emotions of a dying city.
He finds an unlikely ally in Iris Faye, a waitress at one of the city's rowdier music halls, whose emotions nearly blind him; her fearlessness is a beacon in a city rife with terror. Iris, however, is more than what she seems, and reveals a mission to bring down the establishment that has crippled the people of London.
Together, they aim to discover who's really pulling the strings in Jekyll's wake, and why citizens are waking up in the street infected, with no memory of ever having taken the Hyde drug...
Heart-eating monsters, it turns out, are not the greatest evil they must face.”
Review:
Author
Andrea Berthot has skillfully crafted her own spin of the Jekyll and Hyde story
we all thought we knew so well. This clean YA historical fiction is masterfully
written and a blast to read.
Main
characters Elliot and Iris share the narration, granting readers behind-the-scenes
access to all their feelings and motives, and also the feelings of every
character Elliot interacts with. Though he is often puzzled as to the reasons
behind others’ feelings, Elliot consistently tries to do what is right.
While
the slow burn romance between Elliot and Iris is lovely to follow, my favorite thing
about this novel is the proper English young gentlemen; their impeccable manners
and morals and sense of humor and witty banter.
Catch
up on both ‘The Heartless City' and ‘The Hypnotic City’ in preparation for the
series conclusion, ‘The Hysterical City’ releasing on July 31st!
I voluntarily read a Review Copy of this book. All opinions stated are solely my own and no one else’s.
No comments:
Post a Comment