The Madman's Daughter by Megan Shepherd

Series: The Madman's Daughter #1
Publication Date: January 29, 2013
Publisher: Balzer + Bray
Genre: YA, Fantasy, Mystery 
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Synopsis: Sixteen-year-old Juliet Moreau has built a life for herself in London—working as a maid, attending church on Sundays, and trying not to think about the scandal that ruined her life. After all, no one ever proved the rumors about her father's gruesome experiments. But when she learns he is alive and continuing his work on a remote tropical island, she is determined to find out if the accusations are true.

Accompanied by her father's handsome young assistant, Montgomery, and an enigmatic castaway, Edward—both of whom she is deeply drawn to—Juliet travels to the island, only to discover the depths of her father's madness: He has experimented on animals so that they resemble, speak, and behave as humans. And worse, one of the creatures has turned violent and is killing the island's inhabitants. Torn between horror and scientific curiosity, Juliet knows she must end her father's dangerous experiments and escape her jungle prison before it's too late. Yet as the island falls into chaos, she discovers the extent of her father's genius—and madness—in her own blood.

Inspired by H. G. Wells's classic The Island of Dr. Moreau, The Madman's Daughter is a dark and breathless Gothic thriller about the secrets we'll do anything to know and the truths we'll go to any lengths to protect.

My Rating: 5/5 stars

My Review: “Dead flesh and sharpened scalpels didn't bother me. I was my father's daughter, after all. My nightmares were made of darker things.” 

The Madman's Daughter is dark, twisted, and captivating. It is the perfect book for any mystery and science fans. The characters are all intriguing, there was constant action and mystery and the world that Megan Shepherd created is so mesmerizing you can't help but fall in love with it. In my opinion, this book was perfect.

Juliet works as a maid at a University in London, trying to stay out of poverty ever since there was a giant scandal with her fathers research, causing her father to leave London and abandon Juliet. When she finds Montgomery, her father's assistant, she decides to flee London and travel to a remote island where her father is said to be continuing his research. The island is filled with her fathers strange creations, with Montgomery and castaway Edward by her side, not even Juliet can be safe from the murdered trapped on the same island.

I am so impressed with how this book turned out. I wasn't expecting it to be as captivating as it was. I feel like most of that was due to the incredible and unreal characters. 
Juliet is honestly one of my favourite characters right now. She reminds me a lot of Tessa from Clockwork Angel by Cassandra Clare, they both share that passion of knowledge and deeper understanding, even though it wasn't proper for woman to do so in that time. I love how Juliet has a thirst for knowledge and loves to solve mysteries, this made her so much more relatable and made me love her even more.
I wasn't too impressed with the love triangle in this story. It was good in the fact that I couldn't decide between which boy I liked better, but that was mostly because I didn't really like either of them that much. While I thought Montgomery was really handsome and smart, I didn't think he was really into Juliet. He seemed really distant and more interested in other things than Juliet.
I loved Edwards devotion to Juliet, but he seemed really needy and sometimes kind of annoying. 
I found myself cheering for one of them at one point, and then near the end I started cheering for the other one. Then by the last chapter I was like "To hell with you both, single forever!"
Don't get me wrong, the love triangle is still very interesting and I feel like it would make the book more enjoyable if you liked one of the boys, but I just couldn't get into it.
The other islanders was what captivated me the most. They were the characters I was most looking forward to reading about. I loved how they were all so unique and different, and how they all had their own personalities and everything. What really allured me to them was the science behind it. As a scientist myself the whole process and the possibility of such creatures was really mesmerizing to me and I found myself wanting to read more of how her father created them.

This book is filled with a lot of mystery, and it works perfectly well with this book. Since this book is very dark and somewhat scary, the mystery aspect of this story worked perfectly. Usually when I guess who the bad guy is in the story, I'm usually right, but this time I was completely wrong. The author did an amazing job making you guess and then completely surprising you in the end.

Overall, I found this book to be absolutely perfect. I can't wait to continue on with this series. I highly recommend this book to all fantasy, mystery and science fans. It will captivate you, and you will fall in love with the series.

Happy Reading,
-Aneta