The Daughter of Doctor Moreau: #bookreview

Intro

What would you do if your entire life was based on a lie told by your own father? Carlotta Moreau, the daughter of Doctor Moreau, is about to find out how to deal with a lifetime of secrets.

Review

The Daughter of Doctor Moreau by Silvia Moreno-Garcia is set at a remote estate on the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico. It is loosely based on The Island of Doctor Moreau by H.G. Wells. You don’t need to know too much about the original story to enjoy The Daughter of Doctor Moreau.

The book begins in 1871 and ends in approximately 1877. Montgomery Laughton has been hired to be a caretaker of the estate by the benefactor, Hernando Lizalde. From what everyone says, the area is beautiful. However, there is some weird stuff going on at the estate.

Montgomery has been sworn to keep the experiments of Doctor Moreau a closely guarded secret. Moreau has been given the task of making animal/human hybrids into a workforce for Lizalde. So far the hybrids haven’t been strong enough to send away.

Carlotta knows that her illness requires the use of jaguars in a serum to maintain her health. Part of Montgomery’s job is to hunt jaguars and bring them back to Doctor Moreau.

Carlotta tries to find the antidote in her father’s journals but cannot find it. She is very smart and had been trained to be a medical assistant. Carlotta could make a serum for herself and the hybrids if she had the directions.

Montgomery loves Carlotta. He knows that he too flawed for her to love. She falls in love with Lizalde’s son, Eduardo. Honestly, she would have been better off marrying Montgomery. Eduardo is a wretched human being.

Towards the end, Mr. Lizalde returns to take the hybrids and evict the Moreaus. It doesn’t go as anyone expects. Carlotta learns the secret to her existence. She wanted to know the truth. Did the truth set her free? Possibly. It wasn’t what she was expecting but she needed to know.

Conclusion

If you are a fan of science fiction or historical fiction, then you might enjoy this book. Also, if you are a fan of Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s other novels, then you won’t be disappointed in The Daughter of Doctor Moreau.

If you want the Doctor to win by keeping his secret experiments under his control, then you won’t like the ending. The hybrids had more humanity than most of the humans in this novel. Let me know what you think of the book.

• I received the ebook from NetGalley. This is my honest review. All opinions are my own. Obviously.