During the dangerous storms of The Year Without Summer, a group of famous young writers gathered at a mansion on the shores of Lake Geneva, Switzerland. Brilliant Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, her fiery fiancé Percy Shelley, the famously promiscuous Lord Byron, and John Polidori, his sexually tormented personal physician. At the group’s center was Claire Clairmont, Mary’s impressionable, clever, and dangerously loyal stepsister.
Those months of desire, betrayal, and creative passion gave the world the works of Frankenstein, the modern vampire, and the mythic image of these Romantic literary giants. In this intense and propulsive story of love, lust, art and betrayal Claire tells her story, trying to solve the mystery of why she was all but erased from history.
Claire—herself a writer—is desperate to free herself from the uncomfortable role she plays in her sister’s marriage in London. Fueled by Jane Austin’s romantic novels, and believing love offers freedom, Claire begins an affair with celebrity Lord Byron and convinces Mary and Shelley to follow him to Switzerland.
With the threat of paparazzi lurking nearby, Claire’s intimate connection to each member of the celebrity group grows more complex. Her journey of self-discovery leads her to document everyone’s secrets in her journal, and when climate disaster causes food shortages, Claire learns to forage, determined to prove her worth in a world built by and created for men.
The real Claire Clairmont poured her love, life, and razor-sharp wit into her pages, yet her journal from 1816 is curiously missing and each member of the group had a reason to take it.
With searing relevance to our here and now—of celebrity worship, climate disaster, of complicated femininity, Love & Other Monsters is the untold origin story of Frankenstein, a feminist reckoning of sisters, survival, and the creation of monsters—both those on the page and those who walk among us.
Author: Jenny L. Howe
Jenny L. Howe is a literature professor, amateur dog wrangler, and owner of too many Lego sets. Getting lost in love stories is her favorite form of escapism, and she still can’t believe that she gets to write her own and share them with the world. She is the author of romances for teens and adults, including her YA debut Love at Full Tilt.
Publisher: Delacorte Romance
Publication Date: July 21, 2026
Language: English
Print Length: 384 pages
ISBN-10: 0593809122
ISBN-13: 978-0593809129
Item Weight: 9.9 ounces
Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.78 x 8.25 inches
Reading Age: 12 years and up
Grade Level: 7 – 9
