Guest Post: Heather Redmond – DEATH AND THE SISTERS

thebookdivasreads

Oct 2

Good day, book people, and welcome to "spooky reads" season. I'm not a regular seasonal reader, but there's something about reading darker mysteries or horror when the days are getting shorter. Then again, maybe that's just a personal and specific quirk that I don't share with others (kind of like reading books set in the winter during the summer and vice versa). At the moment, I'm doing a buddy read of Frankenstein with a good friend. If you haven't read it, I strongly encourage you to do so then grab a copy of Death and the Sisters by today's guest, Heather Redmond. Ms. Redmond will be discussing with us the creation of her version of Mary Shelley and I'm looking forward to what she has to share. Thank you, Ms. Redmond, for taking the time to stop and visit with us today. I'll now turn the blog over to you.

The Making of Mary Shelley
by Heather Redmond

Mary Shelley and her stepsister, Jane Clairmont, are the main characters of my new mystery series, which kicks off with Death and the Sisters. I've discovered that most people know little about the author of Frankenstein, so allow me to get you up to speed! She came from quite an unusual family.

In 1797, Mary was born in Somers Town, London, the first child of her father, anarchist philosopher and novelist William Godwin, and the second child of feminist philosopher and novelist Mary Wollstonecraft, who died of childbed fever eleven days after Mary was born.

William and Mary had married in order to make their unborn child legitimate. Wollstonecraft already had an illegitimate daughter, Fanny 3 ¼ years older than Mary. Their marriage only lasted eight months, leaving William with two young children to raise.

William, already over forty, immediately tried to find another wife, but was unsuccessful until Mary was four. He then married his next-door neighbor in a fairly rural part of London, French translator Mary Jane, who had two illegitimate children, Charles and Jane Clairmont, who were half-siblings. Mary Jane lost the child who had prompted their marriage, but they had one son together, Willy, in 1803. This led to five children being raised in the same household, none of whom were full siblings.

William had earned a lot of money as a writer during the French Revolutionary War period, but he had destroyed Mary Wollstonecraft's reputation due to an ill-advised biography of her and was down on his luck by his second marriage. He still had a small circle of young acolytes who believed in his philosophy and had access to the larger circle of intellectuals in London. However, they needed an income suitable to raise five children and give his wife a full coterie of servants.

His second wife suggested they start a children's publishing firm and bookshop. It was successful in its first incarnation so they moved it to a larger location in a bad part of town. William wrote books for it under a pseudonym and very much put his work before his family, though he was a loving father in his way and created an atmosphere of learning in the household.

William was an ex-minister. The children were not raised as atheists though people in their circle were atheists. In this era, nonbelievers were highly suspicious and dangerous people.

The air quality was poor in the new house on Skinner Street, with a location near multiple prisons and the animal slaughterhouses of Smithfield Market. All of the family traveled part of the time to escape ill health. Mary spent much of her early adolescence in Dundee, Scotland, living with the Baxter family. More money was spent on the Clairmont children, for education and career training, which led to resentment.

Fanny, an early riser and seemingly William's favorite, helped run the house. Mary and Jane seemed to have a future as shopgirls for the family bookshop. In that era, nothing better could be hoped for, when women could only be wives, teachers, governesses, or companions. The girls were not raised to want material things or marriage. Charles was expensively trained to learn the publishing business.

The Godwins were in a great deal of debt and lived outside of their means. One key tenant of Godwinian philosophy was that it was fine to accept money from others if you had none, which led to him demanding and begging for money. It later led to scandal, as it was rumored that he had sold his children for money. The optics were terrible, to be sure, after the events of the summer of 1814.

When Mary was sixteen, golden-haired, pale, and lovely, she was sent home from Scotland for good. This may have had something to do with the Scottish suitors who were interested in her. It is thought that her father turned down a proposal from a known spousal-abuser in Dundee on her behalf early that spring of 1814. Another young Scot came briefly to London in June, possibly also to propose to her.

We know little about these linchpin months because many letters and Mary's juvenile writings were lost in 1814, and in the proper Victorian age to come, much more was destroyed. Percy Bysshe Shelley's very long-lived father destroyed much of what might have been in Mary's life from her age of twenty-four on.

Mary adored her own father and hated her stepmother. Opinions of Mary Jane are largely not the highest, though in many ways she seems to have done her best. But even her father William suppressed Mary's literary work.

Right when Mary came home in the spring of 1814, she finally met the shining star of her father's acolytes, married, twenty-one-year-old nobleman Percy Bysshe Shelley, whose grandfather was a baronet. After only a couple of months, he had separated from his wife and they were hopelessly in love. Divorce was not an option in 1814…and these were people who believed in free love, which to some might have meant commitment to one true love with the ability to escape if bad things happened, ill-advised marriages notwithstanding, and to others meant endless sexual partners without guilt.

Raised by a father who trained her to accept every word a gentleman said as true, she trusted Percy, and along with her stepsister, ran away with him to France that summer, beginning a life together that led her to literary immortality.

Mary and Percy had a keen interest in science. Percy had been conducting experiments and trying to raise the devil, etc., since early adolescence. Mary was keenly aware that her mother had effectively died giving her birth, and she lived across the street from where executions occurred, near rookeries and in a stressful household. All of this became, along with future experiences of dead babies, battlefields, and intensive reading, a girl who would write Frankenstein, published when Mary was just nineteen.

Death and the Sisters

by Heather Redmond

September 25 - October 20, 2023 Virtual Book Tour

Synopsis:

Death and the Sisters by Heather Redmond

The tangled relationships between Frankenstein author Mary Shelley, poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, and Mary's stepsister Jane Clairmont form the backdrop for an intriguing historical mystery, set in London in 1814, that explores the complex dynamic between sisters and the birth of teenaged Mary's creative genius.

London, 1814: Mary Godwin and her stepsister Jane Clairmont, both sixteen, possess quick minds bolstered by an unconventional upbringing, and have little regard for the rules that other young ladies follow. Mary, whose mother famously advocated for women's rights, rejects the two paths that seem open to her—that of an assistant in her father's bookshop, or an ordinary wife. Though quieter and more reserved than the boisterous Jane, Mary's imagination is keen, and she longs for real-world adventures.

One evening, an opportunity arrives in the form of a dinner guest, Percy Bysshe Shelley. At twenty-one, Shelley is already a renowned poet and radical. Mary finds their visitor handsome and compelling, but it is later that evening, after the party has broken up, that events take a truly intriguing turn. When Mary comes downstairs in search of a book, she finds instead a man face down on the floor—with a knife in his back.

The dead man, it seems, was a former classmate of Shelley's, and had lately become a personal and professional rival. What was he doing in the Godwins' home? Mary, Jane, and Shelley are all drawn to learn the truth behind the tragedy, especially as each discovery seems to hint at a tangled web that includes many in Shelley's closest circle. But as the attraction between Mary and the married poet intensifies, it sparks a rivalry between the sisters, even as it kindles the creative fire within . . .

Book Details:

Genre: Historical mystery
Published by: Kensington
Publication Date: September 2023
Number of Pages: 320
ISBN: 9781496737991 (Hardcover)
ISBN10: 1496737997)
ISBN: 9781496738004 (eBook)
ISBN: 9798765076163 (Digital Audiobook)
ASIN: B0CJS2PXCX (Audible Audiobook)
ASIN: B0BRDWNTSL (Kindle edition)
Series: Mary Shelley Mystery, 1
Book Links #CommissionEarned: Bookshop.org | Amazon | Amazon Kindle | Audible Audiobook | Audiobooks.com | Barnes & Noble | B&N eBook | B&N Audiobook | Downpour Audiobook | Kobo Audiobook | Kobo eBook | Goodreads | Kensington

Praise for Death and the Sisters:

"Death and the Sisters is a terrific blend of gritty history with a mystery that will keep readers turning pages. Impeccably researched and imaginative, Redmond's first Mary Shelley Mystery immerses readers in the drama of young Mary Godwin and her family, as well as her budding romance with Percy Shelley, as they work together to solve a wonderfully bookish murder. I thoroughly enjoyed this series kick-off and can't wait for the next story!"
~ Susanna Craig, author of The Lady Knows Best

"Death and the Sisters is a rip-roaring murder mystery with twists and turns that introduces teenaged Mary Godwin, not yet the author of the immortal work Frankenstein, as an amateur detective. Redmond's foray in the world of rational atheists in early 19th century London is a mesmerizing, forceful delight."
~ Eilis Flynn, author of The Riddle of Rym

"Crafted with vivid historical detail, an artfully twisted plot, and engaging characters, Death and the Sisters is an excellent start to what I hope will be a long-running series."
~ Dianne Freeman, author of the award-winning Countess of Harleigh Mysteries

"It might be the way London comes to life in all of its dark and gritty complexities, or the dynamics between Mary and her step-sister, Jane, as they set out to find the killer of the man who they discover dead in the bookshop. Everyone is a suspect—even Percy Shelley who has caught the eye of the women in the household. Propulsive and immersive, Heather Redmond is at the top of her game until the intense and satisfying end."
~ Mary Keliikoa, author of Hidden Pieces

"An intrepid cast of characters, a stunningly atmospheric 19th-century London, and a riveting murder… Highly recommend."
~ Melissa Bourbon, bestselling author

Author Bio:

Heather Redmond is an author of commercial fiction and also writes as Heather Hiestand. First published in mystery, she took a long detour through romance before returning. Though her last British ancestor departed London in the 1920s, she is a committed anglophile, Dickens devotee, and lover of all things nineteenth-century.

She has lived in Illinois, California, and Texas, and now resides in a small town in Washington State with her husband and son. The author of many novels, novellas, and short stories, she has achieved best-seller status at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and other retailers. Her 2018 Heather Redmond debut, A Tale of Two Murders, has received a coveted starred review from Kirkus Reviews.