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| 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. (Mar.) |
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| 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). |
