"The book to read is not the one that thinks for you but the one which makes you think" -- Harper Lee

Good evening everyone! Today, I have a young adult fiction trilogy I have been meaning to discuss for some time now, all written by the Mrs. Megan Shepard, and each based off a different well-loved classic. The first time I came across these books, they were only meant to be something to occupy some travel time during a vacation. Yet as the series has progressed, these have become favorites of my young adult life. 

The first of her series is titled The Madman’s Daughter (Inspired by H.G. Wells’s The Island of Dr. Moreau) . Now, I read these only a few years ago, and found myself undeniably hooked. Despite any sort of debating opinions I may have had from time to time while reading each book, my heart was far too invested to turn back. 
Right from the start you will notice her style of writing is darkly enchanting, and truly invigorating! It goes well with her heroine, the young, orphaned and abandoned, Juliet Moreau. 

Living in old London, Juliet is an intelligent girl, working as a maid in a medical university. She is versed in anatomy and could likely be a doctor with her know-how if it were not for the times and her finical standing. Her mother died a few years previous, and her father was disgraced for his medical work. Long since forced into hiding, Juliet believes he is dead. 

The beginning is rather raw, as our protagonist is dragged by her friend, Lucy, and several crude boys, into the University after hours, leading her to a shocking discovery which may prove that her father may not only be alive, but also continuing the dangerous, immoral, and gruesome experiments! 

Determined to finally know if he is the monster all his previous colleagues declared he was, Juliet falls into the path of an old friend who may be able to help her. Montgomery, her father’s handsome apprentice lets slip of an island where he has been aiding the shamed doctor. Casting away with them, Juliet has no idea the dangers and madness she is about to descend in to, and the truths she will live to regret. 

Though the book became a little too far-fetched for me, when it came to the actual experiments we find he father dedicated to, the plot and stakes are truly gripping! I really did enjoy the book and found myself actually surprised and at times making hilariously intense expressions as I read. 

The second book in the trilogy, Her Dark Curiosity (with inspiration from Robert L Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde), may be my all time favorite book in the series. Without giving much away, in case you have not yet read the previous book, Juliet is back in London. And while she is tiredly trying to rebuild her life, it is suddenly shaken when an unknown murderer seems to be taking the lives only of those people close to her. 
Unnerved by the evidence found at each murder scene, Juliet becomes determined to entrap and put an end to whoever, or whatever, is ruthlessly killing the people of London. 

Impeded by the worsening illness inside her, Juliet’s condition may swing from alarming to critical in a matter of days if she is not able to obtain the serum in which to save her own life. On top of it all, trust begins to run thin and confusions ramped when rumors of a secret organization once founded by her father is thought to still not only be in progress, but powerful as well. 

Now tantalized by more secrets of her family’s past, and thrust again into frightful danger, a torn heart may be the terrible end of it all. 

In a hideous finale, A Cold Legacy is the last book to our gripping trilogy.

Inspired by Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Juliet is forced to flee her home and seek refuge with her companions to her relative’s remote manor on the Scottish moors. Right away we fear the mysteries which lie in the house, and those pursuing them beyond its walls. 
Here, Juliet will be forced to confront the darkness inside her, and decide if she is destined to be the madman her father always was, or scramble for the lighter path of her tragic mother. Though, with the basement looking like its own morgue, her own friends developing secrets and lies of their own, and the young children residents becoming more and more strange, it seems it may be too difficult not to fall into the curious madness lurking in every shadow. 

Finally dedicated to the man she loves, Juliet is risking losing it all as her part in the family’s secret seems without escape.

In a book where outside forces threaten the sanctuary of an end, sympathy and pure curiosity may finally turn our to be our character’s downfall. 

In every book I found my head spinning with each new nightmarish creature. But before you turn up your nose to the books, answer me this: who doesn’t love a good monster? Who doesn’t love the contemplative madness we deny is inside us all? And who doesn’t feel that spine-tingling thrill when we turn the page and another body is discovered? 

I loved the intelligence of these books, the questioning of what is actually right and wrong, and the constant movement of the plot that keeps you reading (which is also due to the fact that it is riddled with the guilty-pleasure type of romantic drama you get in young adult novels). Lets face it, these piquant books are loaded with twists and dramatic secrets. And every time I think I disliked an ending, or some slow part, the next book proved to me why the last was so good. They really do make you stop and contemplate the morality of something you never thought you would. And in the end, although you will fall in love with the characters, just like in Frankenstein and The Island of Dr. Moreau, you will find yourself wondering if you have not also fallen in love with the monsters.