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High Tide
Not yet published
Expected 5 Nov 26Kindle Edition
Expected publication November 5, 2026
About the author
Livia Franchini
6 books25 followersLivia Franchini is a writer and translator from Tuscany, Italy. She has translated Michael Donaghy, Natalia Ginzburg and James Tiptree Jr. among many others. She is the author of one novel, SHELF LIFE (Transworld, 2019) and one poetry pamphlet, OUR AVAILABLE MAGIC (Makina Books, 2019). The Italian translation of Shelf Life, GUSCI (Mondadori, trans. Veronica Raimo) won the Premio Letterario Pisa first novel award in 2020.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
** Spoilers below **
This has a great opening and it soon became clear that there were obvious intertexts with the Mary and Percy Bysshe Shelley story, though that's not mentioned in the blurb. Here Peter Shelley is the brilliant artist, Mary Godwin, natch, the student who, in the 'now' sections set thirty years later, is a cult horror novelist whose debut was 'that creepy, lyrical novella I wrote in my early twenties... the stream of consciousness of a monstrous creature abandoned by her maker' - a clear reference to Frankenstein. The intensity of the early relationship between Shelley and Mary as students at Goldsmiths is well done with enough variation on the underlying story for it to feel creative and interesting.
But once they leave London, it feels like the well-known parameters switch in and take over this re-writing: Lord Noel Byrne (Byron), Teresa Guiccioli (Byron's later mistress, here moved back in the story to that fateful summer in Italy), Mary's stepsister Clare (Clare Clairmont) and a devilish Edward Trelawny all pile into the narrative and the creative muscle seems to slacken - it feels like both characterisation and events in the story depend overly on the story that we already know, and there isn't quite enough variation to continue to hold my interest.
In the end, this feels too wedded to the original story and, after an intriguing start, doesn't continue to forge its own trajectory for this reader. I'm interested in why the blurb avoids even suggesting that this is a retelling of the Shelley/Mary Shelley story - and how other readers will respond.
Thanks to the publisher for an ARC via NetGalley
This has a great opening and it soon became clear that there were obvious intertexts with the Mary and Percy Bysshe Shelley story, though that's not mentioned in the blurb. Here Peter Shelley is the brilliant artist, Mary Godwin, natch, the student who, in the 'now' sections set thirty years later, is a cult horror novelist whose debut was 'that creepy, lyrical novella I wrote in my early twenties... the stream of consciousness of a monstrous creature abandoned by her maker' - a clear reference to Frankenstein. The intensity of the early relationship between Shelley and Mary as students at Goldsmiths is well done with enough variation on the underlying story for it to feel creative and interesting.
But once they leave London, it feels like the well-known parameters switch in and take over this re-writing: Lord Noel Byrne (Byron), Teresa Guiccioli (Byron's later mistress, here moved back in the story to that fateful summer in Italy), Mary's stepsister Clare (Clare Clairmont) and a devilish Edward Trelawny all pile into the narrative and the creative muscle seems to slacken - it feels like both characterisation and events in the story depend overly on the story that we already know, and there isn't quite enough variation to continue to hold my interest.
In the end, this feels too wedded to the original story and, after an intriguing start, doesn't continue to forge its own trajectory for this reader. I'm interested in why the blurb avoids even suggesting that this is a retelling of the Shelley/Mary Shelley story - and how other readers will respond.
Thanks to the publisher for an ARC via NetGalley
Displaying 1 of 1 review