Books book reviews The Ghosts of Villa Diodati in The Glowing Hours by Leila Siddiqui A young Indian woman becomes a maid in the house of Mary Shelley. By Mahvesh Murad | Published on March 2, 2026 Comment 0 Share New Share In the strangely dreary, wet summer of 1816, a young Mary Shelley began writing Frankenstein, while staying at the Villa Diodati near Lake Geneva. Barely 18, she had run away from home at 16 with poet Percy Shelley, who was at that point married to someone else. Mary had already lost one baby, and was now trying to take care of her second child while living in this odd situation with her lover Percy who had dragged her there to be closer to Lord Byron, with whom Percy was obsessed. Mary’s half sister, Claire Clairemont was also present, and pregnant by Byron. It was soap opera levels of high drama, and in all this, 18-year-old Mary began to write what is now often cited as the first horror/SF novel. It’s astounding, really, what this young girl’s mind was able to do, especially given the circumstances.  But that isn’t what Leila Siddiqui’s first adult novel The Glowing Hours is about. Siddiqui uses that setting to create an entirely imagined plot about that summer in Villa Diodati. While her story does feature these historical figures, it is not directly about them. It is about Mehrunnisa Begum, a young woman from a noble family in India who has been sent to the UK to deliver information about inheritance to her brother James, who has lived for years with their British father in London. Mehr is annoyed about this, because “inheritance meant very little to her since it would be crucial only in her future dowry, passed from one man’s hand to another’s.” So far, she has lived a fairly cushy life surrounded by the comforts of her wealthy Indian family, but after her mother’s death she is left with no one, and packed off to find her brother. Her travel aboard a steamship and her arrival in London are a rude awakening for the young woman who has not encountered any real racism yet, as she finds herself in a world where the colour of her skin immediately sets her into a class category that she is unfamiliar with: “Being a young Indian woman, if she did not belong to a father or husband, she could only belong to a firangi [foreign] family, and nothing else.”  At this point in colonial history, many Indian women were brought over as ayahs, nursemaids to the children of British colonising families, and often discarded when they were no longer needed, without the means to get back home. Many of them were taken in by the Ayah’s Home in Hackney, London, an ostensibly charitable organisation that would attempt to place the abandoned women in new employment, until they were able to earn their passage back to the Indian subcontinent. It is at this home that Mehr finds herself, passing days while waiting for her brother to show up and take her to their father. But James never does, and Mehr has to accept that her only way back home is by doing what the ayahs are doing: work for an English family until she’s able to pay for passage. She considers herself well above this work, but trains to be a housemaid (badly) and is placed at the home of none other than Baronet Percy Shelley, where she is managed by his lover (and the mother of his latest child), Mary.  The two young women are forced to contend with each other in a unique scenario. Mehr and Mary are both of “noble” birth, but Mehr is a servant, and Mary is an unwed mother. Equal in some ways, yet not. Mehr accompanies her employers to Villa Diodati, where she continues to scrub floors, empty chamber pots and brush rugs, while observing the dynamics of the people she works for from a unique, behind-the-scenes perspective. Things start to get strange about halfway through the book (which is, if anything, a very slow burn in the first half), when ghosts and apparitions make their presence felt, as do strange beings with no heartbeats, paintings that move, and nightmares that come alive, all leading awkwardly back to why Safie is in England. Who or what is haunting the villa? Is the villa itself a demon? Or is it that, as Mehr suggests, “this place is not haunted. [They] are.”  It’s indicated at the start of the book that Mehr is based on the character of Safie, the “lovely Arabian” woman who has a small role in Frankenstein. Safie is the relatable “other” in that novel: She is human but alien, and attempts are made to include her in society by the other characters. It is by watching her be taught to communicate in English that the creature also learns. Mehr, though not Arabian and not at all a peripheral character, is also in some ways a relatable other, especially to Mary. Both young women form some sort of bond, as “that was what fate did—bring motherless young women together in the direst of circumstances.” But it is an awkward bond, because Mehr is mostly prickly and unlikable, and Mary is mostly weak and vague. Buy the Book The Glowing Hours Leila Siddiqui Buy Book The Glowing Hours Leila Siddiqui Buy this book from: AmazonBarnes and NobleiBooksIndieBoundTarget None of the characters in The Glowing Hours are particularly likable. This is not a problem per se, but the fact that they are mostly one-dimensional is. Mehr, Mary, Shelley, Byron, and Claire are all petty, self-obsessed, pompous snobs. Byron’s physician Polidori is a little less arrogant, but equally one-dimensional. Byron himself in particular is narcissistic and manipulative, and probably closest to an antagonist. We are meant to have sympathy for Mary, but it is hard, since she barely exists on the page, which is unfortunate. But then again, this is a story about Mehr. “Strange how one can find they are an interruption in another person’s story,” says Mary at some point, and that is really what she is, so those expecting insight into Mary Shelley may be left disappointed.  Siddiqui makes a decent attempt at gothic horror in the second half of the novel, with possibly the largest element being the Villa Diodati itself, which comes alive not just with apparitions but as a haunted space itself. There are some passages that explore this really well, where Mehr realises that this is no ordinary space, when “the house carried on its soft song, the wallpaper rustled against her back, hands reaching out to caress her… The paper bulged under her face, another soft caress against her cheek, then the walls fell still and silent.” The other ghosts are a little lacklustre, though there are some nice body horror elements to do with pregnancy and babies, which tie in well with Mary’s state of mind, and to Frankenstein as a narrative on childbirth.  This is mostly a story about the strange, strained dynamic between the inhabitants of Villa Diodati during that one summer in 1816. Even so it is centred around Mehr, an entirely fictional character in a setting full of historical characters. There are some big ideas about racism, classicism, feminism and power lurking in the background here, peeking around corners but never fully showing themselves. As interesting as this could be, the narrative falls a little flat with some awkward plot holes and what feels like a very random climax, even if the reader is well aware of the backstory and willing to focus only and entirely on Mehr.[end-mark] The Glowing Hours is published by Hell’s Hundred. The post The Ghosts of Villa Diodati in <i>The Glowing Hours</i> by Leila Siddiqui appeared first on Reactor.