To defeat the darkness, she must first embrace it.
Months have passed since Juliet Moreau returned to civilization after escaping her father's island—and the secrets she left behind. Now, back in London once more, she is rebuilding the life she once knew and trying to forget Dr. Moreau’s horrific legacy—though someone, or something, hasn’t forgotten her.
As people close to Juliet fall victim one by one to a murderer who leaves a macabre calling card of three clawlike slashes, Juliet fears one of her father’s creations may have also escaped the island. She is determined to find the killer before Scotland Yard does, though it means awakening sides of herself she had thought long banished, and facing loves from her past she never expected to see again.
As Juliet strives to stop a killer while searching for a serum to cure her own worsening illness, she finds herself once more in the midst of a world of scandal and danger. Her heart torn in two, past bubbling to the surface, life threatened by an obsessive killer—Juliet will be lucky to escape alive.
With inspiration from Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, this is a tantalizing mystery about the hidden natures of those we love and how far we’ll go to save them from themselves.(source:goodreads)
Narrative-As with the previous book of this series, HER DARK CURIOSITY is told from the first-person POV of Juliet Moreau. And, as with the previous book of this series, Juliet's voice was fantastic.
This time she's returned to the scene of high London society, but it's been years since she's been forced to go by the rules. The funniest part is her constant complaints of the corsets. Her voice is rich, believable, and so powerful that I heard her clear as day in my head. And, just as I pointed out in my review for THE MADMAN'S DAUGHTER, there's a few lines that stand out, that pack so much punch that I'm left breathless. In the case of this book, it's: "I don't know what instinct made me keep such a bloody memento of a murderer. Call it sentimentality. Call it curiosity. / Just don't call it madness" (p. 37).
★★★★★
Plot-HER DARK CURIOSITY takes Juliet off her father's island and back into London's high society, when an old friend of the family takes her in as his guardian. Yet even though miles separate Juliet from the nightmares her father created, she's still distracted by her actions while there, the blood flowing through her veins, Montgomery and Edward (left behind on the island), and the fact that her anatomy isn't quite completely human. To top it all off: something from the island seems to have followed her home, and is now killing people on the streets; people who seem to have wronged Juliet in the past.
Time for a little murder mystery, ya'll.
If I thought THE MADMAN'S DAUGHTER was great, this one just blew me out of the water. Juliet's trying to juggle her new, re-privilaged position with the fact that she's involved in some pretty gruesome and bizarre things, whether she wants to be or not. Plus, she knows the killer. No spoilers, here, but there's a lot of hard decisions to be looked at in the plot introduced in this book, including: what makes someone a monster, and does that mean they deserve to die for it? How do you weigh the good vs. the bad?
I really don't feel like I've done that great of a job explaining how awesome this book is, but you'll just have to read it for yourself. See what kind of trouble Juliet's in, now, and the brutal actions she's got, this time.
★★★★☆
Characters-As usual, Juliet's got a solid, no-nonsense attitude that I absolutely adore. She does her best to act to the wishes of her guardian, and her affections toward him are absolutely sweet, but with the knowledge in her head of her father's past actions-and her own problems of her body slowly shutting down unless she can find a cure for her disease-there's some things she simply has to do. And when she realizes that she's somehow connected to the murders, well she has to do something about that, too. Particularly since she knows the killer.
There's also a return of Montgomery and Edward, and lots of emotions surrounding the two. Both of them are madly in love with Juliet (and technically there's a third whose lust for her is through the roof, but that's for you to find out). And, again, I think the way they express themselves are wonderfully and realistically done. Montgomery's trying to keep Juliet safe, and so is Edward. They just have different ways of going about it.
There's some new characters that are definitely worth looking at: Lucy, Juliet's best friend (who the reader gets a small glimpse of in THE MADMAN'S DAUGHTER), and Elizabeth von Stein, Juliet's guardian's niece. Lucy is a character I expected to loathe. Really. She appears to be nothing but a spoiled socialite, talking about suitors nonstop and portraying herself as the bratty friend who always needs the moment to be about them. Boy, was I wrong. It's not long before you realize that the people in Lucy's life actually have a lot to do with the circumstances surrounding Juliet. not only that, but Lucy is a fierce, fierce loyal friend. She's so incredible that she won me over; she's now, officially, my favorite character of the series so far.
Elizabeth is another character I expected not to like, simply because upon first meeting she's more like a foil for Juliet. I wasn't sure if she'd be an enemy or a friend, but I was so relieved to find out that her skeletons are as rotten as Juliet's, and her experiences in life have led her to become an independent woman with strange knowledge of the world. She doesn't blink an eye with some of the things that Juliet winds up doing, which (in some cases), made her almost comical (but not in a silly way; more in the way she handles some things so easily, almost as if it's normal to lock young men in the basement).
Once more, I fell in love with the characters. Obviously.
★★★★★
I finished this book within a day. Therefore, I was extremely relieved to find out I had less than a month to wait for A COLD LEGACY (The Madman's Daughter #3). And I don't care that I'll have just started five new classes here at college. I will read it.
Final Answer: 4.66 / 5
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Great characters + a twisted plot to leave you guessing. @Rae_Slater reviews HER DARK CURIOSITY @megan_shepherd (Click to Tweet)
A thriller with a voice that's rich, believable, and powerful. HER DARK CURIOSITY @megan_shepherd via @Rae_Slater (Click to Tweet)
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