Thank you to the author, publishers Headline and NetGalley UK for access to this as an advance reader’s ebook. This is an honest and voluntary review.

 

Emily has lost her writing mojo. Recovering from a lengthy, unexplained bout of illness and facing an acrimonious divorce it’s not surprising that she’s struggling to write the 10th novel in her cost mystery series. But, when her childhood best friend invites her on a spontaneous summer long trip to Italy she leaps at the chance to try and kickstart the writing. But, the villa, site of an infamous celebrity murder in the 1970s, proves even more inspiring than she imagined.

 

Like the author’s previous novel The Wife Upstairs, this is heavily inspired by classic gothic fiction. In this case it’s actually they story behind the classic, with ‘70’s musicians replacing famous poets in an homage to the story of Mary Shelley and how she created her her most famous story, Frankenstein.

 

While you don’t need to be familiar with Mary Shelley’s story I did find recognising the parallels an enjoying part of the reading experience. And, even if you are familiar it doesn’t give away anything significant about the plot as what happens in the book takes a very different turn.

 

I enjoyed this as a quick thriller, and it’s the perfect tone to make for a great summer read. The characters are mostly good, Emily’s best friend Chess sometimes seems a bit one-dimensional, although she is a very important part of the plot it did make harder to understand why Emily didn’t get more annoyed with her though.

 

Overall a good read.