Frankenstein's Captain is now available

The dead speak to Kara Godwin. A walk through the cemetery fills her head with stories...stories she publishes as fiction for some much-needed cash.

But that's all they are - stories. Until the day one of them follows her home.

Robert Walton is real. He fell in love with Mary Shelley and she immortalized him as the ship’s captain who rescues Victor Frankenstein. Only she did more than that...

Now Kara Godwin must decide what to do with Frankenstein's Captain....

*****

As promised in my newsletter, I have rewritten, re-edited and republished this novella formerly known as Kara's Captain. While I generally prefer not to rewrite past stories, this one has always tugged at me. The characters wanted more and I wanted to give it to them. More what? Um...I DO write erotic romance, remember? :) Frankenstein's Captain is nearly ten thousand words longer than the original story, so you know Kara and Robert wanted a lot more!

Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is a novel I've loved for years. I first read it in college, not for a class, but because I was working my way through the classics just for fun. Moby Dick, Ivanhoe, Jane Eyre...I read them all because, well, they had to make it onto the classic list for some reason!

Frankenstein so stuck with me that I ended up sharing the novel with my students. Because the language can be exalted and the grammar complicated, I read it out loud to several classes, tying it in with current research in artificial intelligence, body part replacement and genetics. Every year I found new articles in these fields. Mary Shelley published her piece of fiction in 1816, but it reads like non-fiction today with all the advancements that have been made.

Still, it works as a cautionary tale against unthinking obsession and begs the question: Just because we can invent something, should we? At what point do ethics and morality step forward and say no, don't go there? Good questions we're still grappling with.

Robert Walton is Victor Frankenstein's foil in Mary Shelley's book. Victor is exhausted, having spent his energy chasing the creature he created. He discovers that Walton has similar passionate feelings about his own desire to find the North Pole. "Do you share my madness?" Victor asks him. "...let me reveal my tale and you will dash the cup from your lips!" The framing provided by Walton now sets up the arena for Victor to take over the story and tell his "tale."

But what if Walton was a real person? What if he truly existed and had something to teach us today? That's the 'what if?' at the center of Frankenstein's Captain. I never liked the original title because it put the emphasis on the wrong character. Kara's important...very important to the story, but ultimately, it isn't her story, it's his. His story of survival, of desire and, eventually, understanding that love for another person is the strongest force of all.

So I am pleased I had the opportunity to refocus this story, adding more than just sex to it (although there's a good deal of that, too!). I hope you enjoy Frankenstein's Captain as much as I did writing it. Click here (or on any of the hyperlinked titles) to purchase. And don't forget to add a review!

Play safe,

Diana