Love & Other Monsters

By Emily Franklin

Maggie O'Farrell's Hamnet meets Jane Austen's Pride & Prejudice in this intense and propulsive story of love, lust, art and betrayal, based on the important--and forgotten--real life story of eighteen-year-old Claire Clairmont, who changed the course of literature forever.

All love stories are ghost stories waiting to happen...

In the bizarrely cold, scandalous summer of 1816, a group of famous young writers gathered at a mansion on the shores of Lake Geneva, Switzerland. Brilliant Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, her fiery fianc Percy Shelley, the famously promiscuous Lord Byron, and John Polidori, his sexually tormented personal physician all sheltered together during the storms of what would become known as The Year Without Summer. Those months of desire, betrayal, and creative passion gave the world the works of Frankenstein, the modern vampire legend, and the mythic image of these Romantic literary giants. But they were not alone. Claire Clairmont, Mary's impressionable, clever, and dangerously loyal step-sister was the one who brought them all together.

Earlier that year, Claire, herself a writer, had grown weary of living in Mary's shadow. Desperate to free herself from the uncomfortable role she played in her sister's marriage, Claire wrote to celebrity Lord Byron, who--to her amazement--responded. And when their ardent affair ended, Claire was determined not to be forgotten and Claire convinced Mary and Percy to follow him to Switzerland.

As a global climate catastrophe wreaks havoc, Claire tries to separate from Mary and Percy Shelley, finding strength in her individuality. Yet Claire is also caught up in romance, fueled by Jane Austen's novels, as she pursues Lord Byron whose celebrity status--and the paparazzi lurking nearby--threatens them all. As the connections between each member of the group grow more complex, Claire tries to find purpose in a world built by and created for men.

While those around her write what became some of literature's most famous works, Claire documents everything in her journal, asking herself just how far she will go for love. With climate disaster threatening the food supply, Claire proves her worth learning to forage for food. The real Claire Clairmont poured her love, life, and razor-sharp wit into her journals, yet her journal from the summer of 1816 is curiously missing. Claire, all but forgotten in her famous sister's shadow, will now tell her story, trying to answer the questions of who took that journal--and why.

With searing relevance to our here and now--of celebrity worship, climate disaster, of complicated femininity, Love & Other Monsters is a tale of sisters, survival, and the creation of monsters--both those on the page and those who walk among us.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1567928552
• ISBN13: 9781567928556
• Release Date: April 2026
• Publisher: David R. Godine Publisher
• Length: 472 Pages