THE GLOWING HOURS

In Siddiqui’s first novel for adults, an Indian woman finds herself in England working for the future author of Frankenstein.

It’s 1815, and Mehrunissa Begum, the 24-year-old daughter of an Indian noblewoman and a British officer, is traveling by steamship from India to London; to honor her dead mother’s wishes, Mehr must deliver an inheritance letter to her brother, who fails to meet her ship. Mehr is accustomed to being served, not serving others, yet with her abandonment by her brother, she has no choice but to seek employment to earn money for her passage back to India. Mehr grudgingly accepts a job as a housemaid for a baronet and poet named Percy Shelley and his wife, Mary, who informs Mehr at their first meeting, “I am working on a novel.” Some months later, Mehr is brought along when the family summers at a villa in Geneva, where supernatural events follow the arrival of Lord Byron. Or is the havoc-wreaker the ghost of the former lady of the villa, “yearning to free herself from this terrible place,” as is Mehr? By making Mehr, from whose perspective the story is told, a haughty brat, Siddiqui takes an admirable risk that doesn’t necessarily pay off: The novel is initially slow-footed, with nothing at stake beyond its sulky protagonist’s ability to earn enough cash to sail home. As the book approaches its midpoint, however, things get creepy, and soon enough vampire-y—manna for retro-horror fans who can overlook some formulaic writing (there’s an awful lot of trembling and shuddering). While Siddiqui presumes the reader’s familiarity with literary figures of the Shelleys’ time, her book is ultimately concerned not with the personal demons that begat Frankenstein but with the demons that overrun one Genevan villa.

Historical vampire antics for those who don’t demand fresh prose.