The Madmen’s Daughter is one of those books that a lot of people will love, and a lot of people will hate, and for a lot of reasons.  Which side you are on depends on if you love Madmen’s inspiration–H.G. Wells’ The Island of Dr. Moreau.  The author takes abundant creative license with Wells’ original story, which was not appreciated by me as a H.G. Wells fan.  However, the gothic style will appeal to many readers, and the plot is well crafted with an exciting mystery and plenty of plot twists to keep the reader engaged.  The romance…well the romance will be one of those love/hate factors.  Personally, it was very reminiscent of the Twilight saga (one of the characters is even named Edward).  Once again, however, readers of the Twilight saga probably will enjoy this aspect of the novel.  Now, the ending may frustrate readers…or it may not when they find out that there are two more books in the trilogy. However conflicting The Madman’s Daughter was, there is no questioning the craft that went into the story and the surprises it will bring to any reader.

Content Analysis:

Profanity/Language: 24 religious exclamations; 6 mild obscenities; 3 religious profanities; 1 derogatory name.

Violence/Gore category:  Multiple scenes involving surgery/dissection of living and dead animals, involving blood and graphic descriptions of blood, beating hearts, etc.  Several fight scenes involving guns, animals, and various sharp implements resulting in death or severe injury.  Several scenes can be considered scary.

Sex/Nudity: Characters kiss and cuddle; a character is nude in a dream and kisses another character in said dream while nude; a character threatens to commit lewd acts on another character.

Mature Subject Matter:

Genetic manipulation, human experimentation, animal abuse, bioethics.

Alcohol / Drug Use:

Characters drink and smoke.