A Storm in the Stars purports to be a novel about Mary Shelley; it’s right there in the subtitle: A Novel of Mary Shelley. In essence, it is more the story of her husband, poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, and she plays a rather subservient female role. Mary comes from a strong literary lineage: her mother is the early feminist Mary Wollstonecraft and her father is the philosopher William Godwin. After her mother dies in childbirth, her father remarries an overbearing woman and has additional children and eventually opens a bookstore, hoping to make enough money to support his family. Mary and Percy meet in this bookstore and fall in love. Though he is married with a child and another on the way, they run off together with Mary’s half-sister, Jane (who assumes the names of Clara then Claire), tagging along.
Having read Frankenstein and several retellings of that story, I was very much let down by this book. Though advertised as Mary’s story, there are so many points of view that detract from her story, including those of Jeff Hogg, a school chum of Percy’s; Claire, her half-sister; even Dr. Polidori, personal physician to the poet Lord Byron. These extraneous points of view seem to outnumber Mary’s, so they really detract from her story. I was disappointed, too, that story of Mary writing of Frankenstein was boring. Though a relatively short read at 349 pages, it felt interminable.
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A Storm in the Stars: A Novel of Mary Shelley (Delphinium Books, August 16, 2022) is available through:
Your local independent bookseller | Amazon | Barnes & Noble
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You can read my reviews of Frankenstein tellings here:
Unnatural Creatures by Kris Waldherr
Unwieldy Creatures by Addie Tsai
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