My Goodreads review: The Glowing Hours

[ankh_hpl]

The Glowing Hours by Leila Siddiqui

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Although loosely based upon the infamous Year Without a Summer of 1816, when Mary Shelley began her groundbreaking Frankenstein, Leila Siddiqui's dark tale is less historical fiction about Gothic writers than a full-on Gothic novel all its own. Taking its title from Byron's "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage," it quickly disabuses the reader of any romantic notions about those Glowing Hours. Instead, thanks to the outsider viewpoint of the Shelleys' Indian housemaid -- a gently born Muslim heiress cast adrift in England -- the whole Shelley/Byron/Polidori dysfunction is on full display.

After a framing Prologue (chronologically an Epilogue set in 1858), Mehrunissa Begum (Mehr) begins her journey from protected resident of her uncle's household to struggling domestic servant. Soon enough, she finds herself hired by Mary Shelley and her (possible) husband Percy. Together with their infant son and Mary's half sister Claire Clairmont, they are soon off to Europe to meet with the famous poet Lord Byron.

Anyone familiar with the Romantic poets already knows this is not going to end well. Invited to stay in Byron's rented villa after their own modest cottage begins leaking from the incessant rains, the Shelleys and Mehr find themselves trapped -- literally -- by a house not so much haunted as obsessed.

As Mehr struggles to fulfill her duties, befriend Mary, and keep clear of Byron, events take on a nightmarish cast. Mehr find an unexpected ally in Polidori, Byron's young physician, but neither of them can forestall the full Gothic menu of terrors. Denied inheritances, revenants, scandalous loves, family secrets, and murders -- they're all here, woven through a plotline which sometimes struggles a little to wind up believably. There's a full measure of satisfaction when it does, though.

Readers expecting a strictly historical approach are likely to be disappointed by The Glowing Hours, but those who appreciate mystery, dread, and revisionist approaches will likely lose themselves in these pages. My thanks to NetGalley for providing me with an advance copy in exchange for an honest review.




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