Title: A BotanicalDaughter
Author: Noah Medlock
Publisher: TitanBooks
Publication date: March 19th 2024
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"Simon, what do you understand to be the nature of a soul?” he said suddenly.
Simon was staring darkly into the endless distance. He didn’t refocus his gaze to reply."
“That part of us which cannot be destroyed.”
It is an unusual thing, to live in a botanical garden. But Simon and Gregor are an unusual pair of gentlemen. Hidden away in their glass sanctuary from the disapproving tattle of Victorian London, they are free to follow their own interests without interference.
For Simon, this means long hours in the dark basement workshop, working his taxidermical art. Gregor’s business is exotic plants – lucrative, but harmless enough. Until his latest acquisition, a strange fungus which shows signs of intellect beyond any plant he’s seen, inspires him to attempt a masterwork: true intelligent life from plant matter.
Driven by the glory he’ll earn from the Royal Horticultural Society for such an achievement, Gregor ignores the flaws in his plan: that intelligence cannot be controlled; that plants cannot be reasoned with; and that the only way his plant-beast will flourish is if he uses a recently deceased corpse for the substrate.
The experiment – or Chloe, as she is named – outstrips even Gregor’s expectations, entangling their strange household. But as Gregor’s experiment flourishes, he wilts under the cost of keeping it hidden from jealous eyes.
The mycelium grows apace in this sultry greenhouse.
But who is cultivating whom?
🪴 🍃 🪴 🍃 🪴
Review
Hey readers,
I'm so excited to share with you my bookish thoughts for this fantastic dark and enthralling read.
The premise is unsuspectingly eerie. The story starts with us meeting two gentlemen in Victorian London who live together in their dilapidated glass sanctuary. To the disapproving outside world of upper-class London, they are just friends but within those walls, Gregor and Simon share a secret love.
Simon works all day in the dark basement, his hobby is taxidermy, whereas Gregor is a botanist who flourishes within his glass greenhouse filled with rare and experimental beauties. The two stick to their worlds and don’t interfere with each other's hobbies.
Until Gregor gets a delivery of a mycelium plant he found in a foreign country that seems to consciously have the ability to protect itself and keep itself alive, Gregor is so impressed he then has the idea to see if the roots can move a human if planted into a dead body, this is where Simon’s expertise comes into play.
Both have always wanted a child and by using the young dead body of a local girl the two begin to craft their own ‘botanical daughter’.
I loved and didn’t expect this element of the story, the darkness that is the underbelly of the entire experiment flows steadily but is kind of smoothed over by the eagerness of the men wanting to create something out of curiosity and longing.
What they are doing is wrong, they know this but what they don’t expect is the lengths to which ‘Chloe’ becomes such a success. Gregor, in his eagerness to impress the London royal horticultural society, forgets that whilst this root has the ability to move and keep itself alive, it also can not have its intelligence controlled. This gave me all the chills from the zombie show The Last Of Us. As much as this story fully gripped me I constantly had a low-level fizzing of dread that at any moment it could all go so terribly wrong.
This story is a beautifully dark, macabre horror against a Victorian London backdrop bursting with charm and lavishness.
🍃Thank you so much @titanbooks for this copy.
Q| Predictive text…
I have a plant and her favourite snack is _______
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Thank you for reading my review.
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