In The Heart Of The Monster

A romantasy retelling of Frankenstein: dark alchemy and a forbidden creator-creature romance collide in 1820s London

Viktor Frank is hunting the monsters he created, unaware that his brilliant new pupil is one of them.

Marshel Allen wants only one thing: to study under the controversial Doctor Viktor Frank. When the prestigious Golstadt School of Alchemy offers scholarships to talented students of limited means, she seizes her chance. Curious and unusually gifted, Marshel soon catches Viktor’s attention, and he draws her into a world where science borders on heresy and nature can be rewritten through symbols, sacrifice, and blood.

But Marshel has not come to Golstadt simply to learn. Violent attacks of pain torment her, and she needs access to Viktor’s knowledge to find a cure. Three years earlier, Viktor led the Demiurge Experiment, an attempt to create life from the remains of the dead. Seven creatures awoke that night. The alchemists who assembled them were slaughtered, and the creations vanished. Since then, Viktor has devoted himself to hunting them down and erasing the mistake that bears his name.

For Marshel, being discovered would mean death: she is the seventh creature. Unlike the others, she does not seek revenge but a life of her own—one in which pain does not consume her. And to obtain it, she will risk everything. Yet the closer Marshel draws to her creator, the harder it becomes to reconcile the ruthless alchemist hunting her kind with the grief-stricken man beneath. Against her better judgment, fascination deepens into forbidden desire.

With the surviving creatures closing in and the Council of Alchemy investigating Viktor’s crimes, it is only a matter of time before Marshel’s secret comes to light. When the truth emerges, they must decide whether humanity is determined by how someone is born—or by what they choose to become.