“But I couldn’t get the image out of my head of the beast strapped to the table, Father humming while the candle wax slowly dripped, and Montgomery assisting.”
When I read I ask a lot of weird questions. Google seems like my BFF. Especially when I read re-tellings of stories when I never read the original And this is exactly what happened with The Madman’s Daughter. I had never read The Island of Doctor Moreau, but when I read the premise for this book, I knew that I wanted to read them BOTH. So since I had an e-ARC of Shepherd’s book and didn’t have time to read the original, I did some snooping around the internet to find out some things about it.
The Island of Doctor Moreau is an 1896 science fiction novel written by H. G. Wells. The story is “the narration of Edward Prendick, a shipwrecked man rescued by a passing boat who is left on the island home of Doctor Moreau, who creates human-like beings from animals via vivisection.” Sounds stupid creepy right?! When they say “human like” they mean like upright and walking… And what further made me freak out was the fact that H.G. Wells thought that this could really be possible. I’m sorry but if someone starts trying to do this…. I’m definitely moving lol
There have been many different adaptations of The Island of Dr. Moreau. It’s been made into a movie SIX times and there were countless other book re-tellings. “Seattle, Washington’s Taproot Theatre Company [even] performed a theatrical adaptation (adapted for stage by Sean Gaffney) of the novel in 1999.
Although I couldn’t read the original, it didn’t stop me from thoroughly enjoying The Madman’s Daughter. I have actually planned to re-read it and then read The Island of Dr. Moreau just to read something creepy around Halloween.
The series from Megan Shepherd doesn’t stop there. The last two books in her trilogy are: Her Dark Curiosity (which is inspired by The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde) and the last book in the series which is Untitled as of right now. (It also doesn’t have a synopsis so we’re not sure what it will be inspired by.)
