THE GLOWING HOURS

A haunting gothic tale that combines the real-life drama of Mary Shelley and Lord Byron's personal lives with South Asian folklore and a fight against the demons that trauma creates.

Following her mother's death, Mehrunissa is given one task: travel from India to London and deliver her brother his letter of inheritance. However, her brother, James, never comes to pick her up in London, and Mehr is forced to serve as a housemaid in none other than Mary and Percy Shelley's home.

Soon, Mary's stepsister Claire arrives for a visit, and convinces the Shelleys to join her in Geneva for a rendezvous with her lover, Lord Byron, where they stay in the infamous Villa Diodati. But it doesn't take long for things to get strange - Mehr finds an abandoned sitting room with a painting of a woman that changes every few days, she begins to see visions of a ghostly pregnant woman roaming the halls, and the walls have a heartbeat.

In a sinister tale that has Mehr fighting for her life against the demons of each Diodati inhabitant made corporeal, Siddiqui combines South Asian folklore and a tale as old as time (the night Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein) to create a mind-bending romp through the creepiness and competitiveness of that infamous summer.

Leila Siddiqui lives in Queens with her husband. She is also a digital marketing strategist in publishing. Her love for horror started at a young age, and she wrote her first novella in third grade. Her debut YA novel, HOUSE OF GLASS HEARTS, was published in 2021 with Yali Books.