Poor Creatures

She did not mean to. But she has killed, and killed, and killed again. Dundee, 1812. Isabel Baxter awaits the arrival of Mary Godwin, a girl of precocious intellect and grand passions, sent north to cure an ailment no one understands. Nestled in woodland on the banks of the Tay, the Baxter family estate seems a perfect place for a troubled girl to recuperate. But The Cottage is a place of secrets, memories - and monsters. Haunted by sickness and loss, Mary steps with Isabel into a shared fantasy world of intrigue and desire. As the fiction weaves its web about them, the two girls begin to lose their interest in reality - with far-ranging consequences for the lives of more than themselves. The tale of the birth of Frankenstein has fascinated for centuries. 'Poor Creatures' imagines the birth of Mary Shelley the writer - and the devastating effects on the circle about her.