"The Resurrectionist"

Kathleen S. Allen is a young adult writer of gothic horror, historical, fantasy, and speculative fiction. She has published poems, short stories, novellas, and novels. She prefers dark to light, salty to sweet, and tea to coffee. She is a fan of K-Pop, classic rock, and British detective shows. She loves gray, foggy, cool, rainy days; unfortunately she lives in Los Angeles which is usually sunny and warm.

Allen applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, The Resurrectionist, and shared the following:

On page 69 Dilly is interacting with a visiting professor, Victor Clerval who is an Anatomist based out of Scotland. Dilly finds out he knew her recently deceased father and is eager to learn more of what he knows about her father’s research. She also hopes to secure him as a sponsor to medical college since she is financially unable to pay for it. He considers it and tells her to use his name as a reference for applying to medical colleges. She is thrilled to being one step closer to her dream of becoming a surgeon like her father. Except his caveat is she must first find a college who will admit her and that is a daunting task since so few (if any) medical colleges admit women to study medicine with the idea of becoming a physician and none will admit a woman who wants to be a surgeon. But Dilly is determined to pursue her dream.

In part this page introduces the main character as someone with determination and scientific knowledge but it doesn’t address the resurrectionist part which is the crux of the book. This page shows Dilly to be serious about the medical profession, however it might lead to the browser to think the book was only about a Victorian young lady (although her age isn’t mentioned on this page) who is trying to become a surgeon. So, no, the Page 69 Test doesn’t work for The Resurrectionist.

The Resurrectionist is a young adult gothic horror reimagining of Frankenstein taking place in 1888 Victorian England. It’s about a seventeen-year-old young woman who dreams of following in her recently deceased father’s footsteps to become a surgeon. But aspiring to be a physician or even a surgeon is frowned upon in 1888. Victorian women are seen as inappropriate and unladylike to even want any career instead of being a wife and mother. Dilly defies societal rules throughout, breaking one after another until she only follows her own rules. Along the way she’s caught up in a tangled web of graverobbing, dead bodies, murder and scientific experiments gone horribly wrong.

Visit Kathleen S. Allen's website.

--Marshal Zeringue