Title: Her Dark Curiosity
Author: Megan Shepherd
Series: The Madman’s Daughter trilogy
Rating: ★★★★

I really enjoyed The Madman’s Daughter and was anxious to read Her Dark Curiosity. I became even more anxious when I read it was inspired by The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

There are certainly issues with this novel. Juliet definitely made some stupid decisions. There’s a love triangle and some people just aren’t fans. But those issues never took me out of the novel. Shepherd explains them, or they play such a big part of the story that they make complete sense.

Take Juliet, for example, and some of her more unintelligent decisions. She feels compassion for the Beast and Edward. She trusts him when she probably shouldn’t. She keeps secrets when she shouldn’t. But each time she does one of these things, it makes sense. She herself isn’t completely human, so she understands Edward and the Beast in a way. She questions whether she can truly be at peace with what she is if she treat someone else created is a negative way. She knows and recognizes how mad her father had gotten, and she knows how far she fell after he was cast out. She fears that admitting she has the same curiosity means she will end up like her father, and telling people those secrets scares her.

I get it. I understand why Juliet sometimes comes off as making bad choices. She makes stupid decisions, but I can understand the reasoning behind them.

As for the love triangle, I never really felt like it was done to make people love one person and hate the other. The two interests mirror Juliet’s feelings about herself. There’s Edward and the Beast on one side, playing to Juliet’s fear of her father and her own madness. On the other side is Montgomery, showing Juliet that science doesn’t have to mean madness. I thought it was really well done.

Her Dark Curiosity continues the amazing journey The Madman’s Daughter started. It makes you think about what makes people good and evil. It’s fantastic in its descriptions and story. Like its predecessor, it’s dark, but wonderfully so. I am loving this series.

If you’d like to read Her Dark Curiosity, you can purchase it here:
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