Book Review: The Madman's Daughter by Megan Shepherd

In the darkest places, even love is deadly.

Sixteen-year-old Juliet Moreau has built a life for herself in London—working as a maid, attending church on Sundays, and trying not to think about the scandal that ruined her life. After all, no one ever proved the rumors about her father's gruesome experiments. But when she learns he is alive and continuing his work on a remote tropical island, she is determined to find out if the accusations are true.

Accompanied by her father's handsome young assistant, Montgomery, and an enigmatic castaway, Edward—both of whom she is deeply drawn to—Juliet travels to the island, only to discover the depths of her father's madness: He has experimented on animals so that they resemble, speak, and behave as humans. And worse, one of the creatures has turned violent and is killing the island's inhabitants. Torn between horror and scientific curiosity, Juliet knows she must end her father's dangerous experiments and escape her jungle prison before it's too late. Yet as the island falls into chaos, she discovers the extent of her father's genius—and madness—in her own blood.

Inspired by H. G. Wells's classic The Island of Dr. Moreau, The Madman's Daughter is a dark and breathless Gothic thriller about the secrets we'll do anything to know and the truths we'll go to any lengths to protect.

I have been looking forward to this book for a while now, I am a fan of gothic literature and like the darker side of fiction so I was pretty sure this was my kind of book, and for the most part I was not disappointed.  It was far from perfect but I really enjoyed it and finished it in one evening. 
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I thought the storyline was strong; it was dark and at times quite chilling.  It held my interest all the way through. I found some of it extremely exciting, this was a weird book because there were a couple of times where this book enraged me but there were other times were I thought it was outstanding.
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The main issue is the characters, specifically Juliet.  The boys are alright but Juliet was a different story all together.  There were moments that I loved her, at first I thought she was amazing, she was brave and gutsy and not afraid to stand up for herself.  Then she meets her estranged father and I wanted to strangle her.  For some reason she turns into an idiot, she wants his love and acceptance but he has wronged her so much that I cannot understand why she would want anything to do with him, his actions caused her mother to sell herself and the same nearly happened to Juliet.  Luckily she snapped out of that and for the most part I liked her again.
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The romance was also a bit of an issue.  I have no problems with love triangles, sometimes I quite like them, but this one was over played.  You cannot go to pages without hearing about Juliet’s ‘feelings’ which change as often as the tides.  It is a pity because it is the story that makes this book really good not the romance.  I would have preferred the romance to compliment the story not be such a huge part of it.
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Despite the issues I had, I still really, really enjoyed this.  The writing was really good, there is a great twist at the end that was hard to see coming and one of the best cliff-hangers I have read in a while.  I do recommend this book highly (it is one of the better 2013 releases I have read so far this year) and I cannot wait to sink my teeth into the next book in the series.

4 stars

Published January 29th 2013 by Balzer + Bray.  A free copy was provided for review. Image courtesy of Goodreads

Review by Kate Phillips