MONSTROUS

A monster's search for identity and redemption, with betrayal, lies and madness at its core.

Having wakened with no memory, patchwork Kymera knows only what her kind-faced creator, Barnabas, tells her—that the girls of nearby Bryre are being stolen by a deranged wizard, and she has been assembled from gathered parts of victims and magical creatures to rescue them, one per night. But as Kymera pursues her nocturnal mission, aided by wings and a stinging tail that (in overt homage to Frankenstein) are bolted on, exchanges with an intrepid lad named Rendall and other puzzling clues gradually lead her to question her assumptions. The horrific truth at last revealed, devastated Kymera sets out to rescue the dozens of girls she has taken. More betrayal awaits, though, along with considerable slaughter, before just deserts are fully paid. Connolly makes her conflicted narrator so slow on the uptake that readers, who will twig to the true villain's identity far earlier, may grow impatient waiting for her to get on with it. Not that the plot is particularly compelling, what with its dependence on conveniently overheard conversations and stylized battle choreography, plus Kymera's angst-y frets about her true inner nature to slow it down further.

The story may be spun with classic DNA, but in the end, it’s sluggish and overwrought.