January Gothic Horror Book Club: A Botanical Daughter by Noah Medlock
Schedule
Thu, 16 Jan, 2025 at 06:30 pm
UTC-05:00Location
125 Broadway, Hanover, PA, United States, Pennsylvania 17331 | Hanover, PA
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The Little Fox Gothic Horror Book Club meets every third Thursday of the month and is led by our amazing employee Eva. All of our book clubs are very low key - with a goal of creating community and connecting with others that have a love of reading. You must RSVP to reserve your spot as space is limited to 10 people and spots fill up a few months in advanced. You can pick up a copy of this month's book at the bookshop or order it online for pick up to make sure you get a copy.This month's read is A Botanical Daughter by Noah Medlock.
About the Book:
Mexican Gothic meets The Lie Tree by way of Oscar Wilde and Mary Shelley in this delightfully witty horror debut.
A captivating tale of two Victorian gentlemen hiding their relationship away in a botanical garden who embark on a Frankenstein-style experiment with unexpected consequences.
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?
Told with wit and warmth, this is an extraordinary tale of family, fungus and more than a dash of bloody revenge from an exciting new voice in queer horror.
About the Author:
Noah Medlock is a novelist and theatre musician living in York, UK. He writes vivid and off-beat stories which sit somewhere between Horror, Fantasy, and Historical. Noah plays piano and trombone for shows and teaches singing and performing arts in York. A passionate devotee of all musical theatre, but especially Stephen Sondheim, Noah is the kind of person who will happily start crying at the overture. He once worked as a horticultural advisor at a garden centre, which inspired the completion of his debut mycelial horror novel A BOTANICAL DAUGHTER. Noah can still be found shouting into the void on Twitter, as well as on TikTok and Instagram.
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Where is it happening?
125 Broadway, Hanover, PA, United States, Pennsylvania 17331Event Location & Nearby Stays:
