Waiting On Wednesday

Waiting On Wednesday is hosted by Breaking the Spine

My pick this week is the second novel historical suspense novel by author Lynn Shepherd featuring private detective Charles Maddox. The first, The Solitary House (aka Tom-All-Alone's) was published in the 2012.

Published as A Treacherous Likeness in the UK in February, A Fatal Likeness will be out in the US in May


A FATAL LIKENESS by Lynn Shepherd

A mystery that explores the dark lives and unexplained secrets of the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, and his wife Mary, author of Frankenstein.

In the dying days of 1850 the young detective Charles Maddox takes on a new case. His client? The only surviving son of the long-dead poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, and his wife Mary, author of Frankenstein.

Charles soon finds himself being drawn into the bitter battle being waged over the poet’s literary legacy, but then he makes a chance discovery that raises new doubts about the death of Shelley’s first wife, Harriet, and he starts to question whether she did indeed kill herself, or whether what really happened was far more sinister than suicide.

As he’s drawn deeper into the tangled web of the past, Charles discovers darker and more disturbing secrets, until he comes face to face with the terrible possibility that his own great-uncle is implicated in a conspiracy to conceal the truth that stretches back more than thirty years.

The story of the Shelleys is one of love and death, of loss and betrayal. In this follow-up to the acclaimed Tom-All-Alone’s, Lynn Shepherd offers her own fictional version of that story, which suggests new and shocking answers to mysteries that still persist to this day, and have never yet been fully explained.

There is this really odd thing where, despite never having read all of Frankenstein -- which now that I remember that is a fact, I'm moving way up both my TBR and to-do lists -- I'm fascinated by Mary Shelley's life. (I watch too much History Channel sometimes.)

Anywho, this part of the synopsis:

[T]hen he makes a chance discovery that raises new doubts about the death of Shelley’s first wife, Harriet, and he starts to question whether she did indeed kill herself, or whether what really happened was far more sinister than suicide.

has me just super excited to read this and see where it all goes. I've thought their lives would make for great fiction for a while (not talking about the Frankenstein movies, thank you) and while this is after them it's still them and that story.

Really anxious to read this one -- plus, isn't that a fantastic cover?



A Fatal Likeness on Goodreads &Amazon









What are you waiting on this week? Link me to it!