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Title details for A Botanical Daughter by Noah Medlock - Wait list

A Botanical Daughter

by Noah Medlock
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Mexican Gothic meets The Lie Tree by way of Oscar Wilde and Mary Shelley in this delightfully witty horror debut.
A captivating tale of two Victorian gentlemen hiding their relationship away in a botanical garden who embark on a Frankenstein-style experiment with unexpected consequences.
It is an unusual thing, to live in a botanical garden. But Simon and Gregor are an unusual pair of gentlemen. Hidden away in their glass sanctuary from the disapproving tattle of Victorian London, they are free to follow their own interests without interference. For Simon, this means long hours in the dark basement workshop, working his taxidermical art. Gregor’s business is exotic plants – lucrative, but harmless enough. Until his latest acquisition, a strange fungus which shows signs of intellect beyond any plant he’s seen, inspires him to attempt a masterwork: true intelligent life from plant matter.
Driven by the glory he’ll earn from the Royal Horticultural Society for such an achievement, Gregor ignores the flaws in his plan: that intelligence cannot be controlled; that plants cannot be reasoned with; and that the only way his plant-beast will flourish is if he uses a recently deceased corpse for the substrate.
The experiment – or Chloe, as she is named – outstrips even Gregor’s expectations, entangling their strange household. But as Gregor’s experiment flourishes, he wilts under the cost of keeping it hidden from jealous eyes. The mycelium grows apace in this sultry greenhouse. But who is cultivating whom?
Told with wit and warmth, this is an extraordinary tale of family, fungus and more than a dash of bloody revenge from an exciting new voice in queer horror.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    March 19, 2024

  • Formats

    • Kindle Book

    • OverDrive Read

      • ISBN: 9781803365923

    • EPUB ebook

      • ISBN: 9781803365923
      • File size: 1736 KB

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • Publisher's Weekly

      January 29, 2024
      Medlock’s stylish debut veers between a heartwarming story of queer love and a creeping gothic. Simon Rievaulx and Gregor Sandys live in a greenhouse far from the Victorian society that would judge them for their romantic relationship and unconventional careers: Simon’s a taxidermist and Gregor trades in exotic plants. Their situation is odd but stable until Gregor discovers a possibly sentient fungal sample. In his fervor to be recognized by the Royal Horticultural Society, he attempts to encourage the mycelium from sentience to true consciousness, even recruiting Simon’s skills to give the fungus a human form. As this plant woman, Chloe, develops, so do her personality and sometimes dark desires. Her burgeoning connection with the men’s housekeeper, Jennifer Finch, makes it apparent that the household’s new “daughter” is not the passive experiment she was imagined to be. Medlock approaches his occasionally sinister plot with heaps of wit and whimsy, though his devotion to tone can sometimes obscure character development. Still, this unusual, cottage-core horror novel is sure to find fans. Agent: Ren Balcombe, Janklow & Nesbit UK.

    • Booklist

      February 1, 2024
      An ambitious scientist grapples with the unexpected consequences of his experiments in Medlock's lush debut, a queer riff on Frankenstein. In the Victorian English countryside, botanist Gregor and his lover, taxidermist Simon, spend their days safely ensconced at their estate, far from the prying eyes of London society. But Gregor seeks more than just a quiet life toiling away at his hobbies--he wants recognition from the Royal Horticultural Society, and he'll stop at nothing to get it. When he successfully creates life from a mysterious species of fungus and the body of a recently deceased woman (whom he names Chloe), the results are more than he possibly could have imagined. But as Chloe comes into her own, the cost of maintaining the experiment will have disastrous consequences for this newfound family. With touches of sly humor and plenty of moody atmosphere, this incisive blend of ecohorror and gothic fiction will resonate with fans of Silvia Moreno-Garcia's Mexican Gothic (2022) and T. Kingfisher's What Moves the Dead (2022).

      COPYRIGHT(2024) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Formats

  • Kindle Book
  • OverDrive Read
  • EPUB ebook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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