...I'm still not sure if this is the first book in a series, or a second book, or a sequel series. Not sure.
It read a lot as if it were a sequel in a series, but according to amazon it's the first one in a series.
If it is a sequel to another book, it wasn't necessary to read the other book to understand this book.
Anyways, an amazon summary, "Penelope Tredwell is the feisty thirteen-year-old orphan heiress of Victorian Britain's bestselling magazine, the Penny Dreadful. Her spine-chilling tales--concealed under the pen name Montgomery Finch--are gripping the public. One day she receives a letter from the governor of the Bedlam madhouse requesting Finch's help to investigate the asylum's strange goings-on. Every night at precisely twelve minutes to midnight, the inmates all begin feverishly writing-incoherent ramblings that Penelope quickly realizes are frightening visions of the century to come. But what is causing this phenomenon? In the first book of this smart new series, Penelope is drawn into a thrilling mystery more terrifying than anything she could ever imagine!" AMAZON LINK OF JUSTICE
Penelope is the secret author of the Penny Dreadful - a horror magazine that has risen to fame under Penelope her flourishing words.
...but Penelope is only thirteen years old.
So she writes under the pen name of 'Montgomery Finch'.
To keep up this 'clever' ruse, she's hired an older gentleman actor to read her stories aloud as if he had written them and to truly bring her words to life.
A local insane asylum is having a rather interesting mystery that is teetering towards horror. The Doctor gets in contact with Montgomery Finch in the hopes that the brilliant horror story writer can deduce the mystery of the asylum.
....that's a good summary.
So there were a lot of weird aspects that started to come into play as the story was written as if it were realistic fiction...maybe has tidbits of dribble in it but takes itself rather seriously.
SPOILER LAND RIGHT NOW.
As the mystery began to reveal, it took on an element of increasing fantasy (while trying to have a scientific edge to it) that threw me for a loop. There was too much that was not explained or swept along by some intense action moments.
The story had a nice trot to it all along, but then it floored it into crazy town of no explanations and whacked out endings that led nowhere except to the last page.
I think this is the beginning of series, but I frankly find myself with disdain for the book. If the ending hadn't been wrapped up in such a crazy way, I would have enjoyed it a lot more.
So all in all, it was a short little jaunt that was very pleasant until it was led down a rabbit hole and into the unforgivable lands of switching the genre towards the end of the book.
Happy reading!
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