The Glowing Hours
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- Pre-Order
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- Expected Feb 3, 2026
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
A mind-bending, revisionist gothic horror story about the fabled summer Mary Shelley began work on Frankenstein, as told by her Indian housemaid, Mehrunissa “Mehr” Begum. For fans of Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Isabel Cañas, and Kathe Koja.
“Strange how one can find they are an interruption in another person’s story . . .”
Summer 1816: London is a hostile place for the newly disembarked Mehrunissa Begum, who’s come to deliver her brother’s letter of inheritance before returning to her comfortable life in Lucknow, India. Only, she can’t find her brother anywhere and has no money for the return trip. With nowhere else to go, Mehr finds refuge in a boardinghouse for Indian maids. If she can’t find her brother, she reasons, she will get a job and start saving.
Mehr is soon hired at the English estate of Mary and Percy Shelley, young artists of burgeoning fame who are on the run from secrets of their own. Mary is brooding and quiet, but takes a curious liking to her new maid, asking her to accompany the Shelleys and her stepsister, Claire—as well as the eccentric Lord Byron and his physician, John Polidori—to Lake Geneva for the summer.
Almost immediately, Mehr notices strange, ghostly events at the villa. The walls breathe, portraits shift, and phantoms appear like unbidden guests who refuse to leave. The weather is fierce and foreboding, showing no signs of softening its relentless pall. And as Mary Shelley begins work on what will become her earth-shattering literary phenomenon, Mehr finds herself trapped in the villa as the rest of its inhabitants descend into madness.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this brilliant reimagining of the tumultuous summer during which Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein, Siddiqui (House of Glass Hearts) shifts the focus onto the Shelleys' housemaid, Mehrunissa "Mehr" Begum, who arrived to England from India in 1815. Mehr, whose father is British and mother Indian, was raised in relative luxury in India. However, in England, she's neglected by her father and brother, who preceded her there, and forced to work for a living for the first time in her life. She is placed with the Shelleys and taken along on their summer expedition to Geneva where, together with Mary's stepsister, Claire, they will stay with Lord Byron and his physician, Polidori, and work on their writing. Siddiqui masterfully evokes the time period and creates an atmosphere dripping with unease as Mary and Mehr begin to have converging nightmares in their eerie vacation villa. Though the life of Mary Shelley has often been mined for material, Siddiqui brings a fresh perspective through the eyes of the witty and sullen Mehr, whose backstory and fraught relationships with the increasingly entangled Geneva party add to the intrigue. This is a real treat for fans of gothic fiction.
