Book Review (#3) - The Madman's Daughter by Megan Shepherd

Title: The Madman's Daughter
Author: Megan Shepherd
Published: January 29th 2013 by Balzer + Bray
First in The Madman's Daughter series
432 pages 

Sixteen year old Juliet is frowned upon in the town of London, and it is all because of her father. She is making a living for herself by working as a maid and keeping low. Her mom passed away soon after her father left so she's all alone in the town. But when she finds out her father is alive, and continuing the work he was kicked out of London for, everything changes. She travels to the island where he has been hiding. When she arrives she finds that her dad has created an island full of animals that he has performed on to turn them almost human-like. This is the work that got him banned from London. Now the question is, can she make her father cease this horrible and disturbing work?

This book is based off of the book The Island of Doctor Moreau by H.G. Wells. I have never read that book before and I don't think it is necessary to do so before reading this one. In my opinion it was probably better because then you don't know the outcome. There were tons of twists and the ending was a complete shock to me, even though I feel like I should have seen it coming. I really loved the writing style that Shepherd gave in this book. It really reminded me of Kenneth Oppel's This Dark Endeavor (which I really enjoyed even though it was very creepy, disturbing and eerie). The way settings and characters are described and portrayed, it feels like you are just thrown onto a creepy island with strange vivisected animal/human creatures. As a debut novel, I think Shepherd did a beautiful job and I feel like this is the beginning to a great series.

I'm really hoping in the next book we will learn more about Montgomery, who was my favorite character. He was definitely the most interesting of the bunch, along with Jaguar. Juliet's father really makes the perfect villain; he is insane and heartless, and as the title suggests, he is quite the madman.

I cannot wait to see where she takes this series. The sequel Her Dark Curiosity is coming out in 2014 and it is inspired from the Robert Louis Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.