I felt this one started strong but started seriously dipping after the first 30% and I ultimately DNF’d a little over halfway through.

I thought the premise was interesting snd the prose was often beautiful, but the way the characters related to each other, especially through dialogue, just felt stilted to me. This was quite possibly intentional given that all three main characters seem a little socially awkward, outcast and/or reclusive, but it took me out of the story nonetheless.

I also felt the pacing was a little off.

Gregor, still smarting from his humiliation at a horticulture show, is determined to show the world that fungi can be every bit as beautiful and impressive as flowers. And when he gets a shipment of mycelium that acts in a strange way, he has found his vehicle. The mycelium seems to act with intention, which begs the question: is it conscious? Can it be made conscious? What even is true consciousness.
Simon, a taxidermist, wants no part of Gregor's experiment, but agrees to help out of love for the man. But as Gregor gets more and more invested in his experiment, Simon grows more disgusted--until he begins to wonder if this experiment might not be the perfect addition to their little family after all.
And Jennifer, their newly-hired housekeeper, is reeling from the loss of her best friend and lover. Working in Gregor and Simon's greenhouse home seems like a dream, even if the men are a bit eccentric.
Together, the three of them tend to the experiment, and grow to love it in their own ways.

A Botanical Daughter is so strange in the best way. It is incredibly beautiful, and a fascinating examination of consciousness and humanity. I can't wait to read more from Noah Medlock.

This is an interesting botanical take on Frankenstein. While I enjoyed the premise and horror aspect, I didn't love the writing style and the characters fell a tad flat for me. Maybe it was just the way they talked that made it hard to relate to them. (Side note: I will say the way the author made the characters talk did fit with the time period of the story.) I think overall it's a good story, just a bit boring at times. I would still recommend giving this a shot! It might just not be the right cup of tea for me.

3.5
Fungas and plants that take life off someone's best friend? What a concept! I was loving the eerie disturbing thought of this plant person coming to life, struggling to live and grow. To think of the ways a plant could work with other factors to live like a human. So freaky. I also loved this couple. I love how they lived doing their separate passions but together in love. The project was such a great merging of the two. I wish I loved the time period better because the way it is told in that time period and the way people talked took me way out of the story. It was fitting for what the story was but it just made it hard for me to stay into the story. Also scientic journal enteries made me feel like i was reading textbooks. I wanted more of the relationships and enviroment living in. I felt this was a great unique story as well as, a great retelling of frankenstein. I would recommend it especially to those who love historical fiction.

An intriguing and gripping story, I loved the characters and can't wait to read more by this author.

Brilliant! This Frankenstein-esque novel masterfully weaves weirdness, creepiness, and poignant moments, echoing themes of love and identity. Set in the late 1800s, it unveils the secluded lives of two men, a botanist, and a taxidermist, navigating a forbidden love within the confines of a greenhouse. The botanist's quest for understanding life and intelligence leads to a unique creation—a half-plant, half-woman entity. The narrative beautifully explores familial bonds, treating the creation as their own daughter. The author skillfully delves into the emotional and mental nuances of having created life, raising questions of sentience, societal acceptance, and the complexities of love. A beautifully written tale deserving of 4 stars.

Huge thank you to Titan Books and Netgalley for access to this free ebook!

fast facts-
found family
Frankenstein vibes
LOTS of plants
exploration of love
queer romance

This was such a great read!! the characters all but jumped off the page to start a convo with me, they were SO good. i loved the love in this book. Simon & Gregor were a master class in opposites attract and it was so fun to peek into their relationship. Medlock's writing style was sophisticated without being pretentious, plus i actually laughed out loud multiple times! what more could you ask for?! this will be one of my favorites of the year!

A Botanical Daughter is a sporror version of Frankenstein, with two very eccentric men with a lot of ambition and madness.

The story was gory and brutal at times, whitch I loved, but I got thrown off a bit by the witty parts which drew me out of the story. The writing was a bit all over the place, especially when writing about Gregor and Simons feelings about CHLOE, so at times it felt hard to follow.

But the setting and fungi horror itself was really cool and interesting, and I would absolutely reccommend this book to people who loved What Moves the Dead and Bloom if only for those parts.

Thank you so much, Titan Books and NetGalley, for the chance to read this book in exchange of an honest review.

TW: body horror, death, murder, gore, blood

Simon and Gregor are two unusual gentlemen, living in a botanical garden and hiding their relationship from the Victorian society. Simon works his taxidermical art in the basement, while Gregor is interested in plants, exotic and harmless. Until he receives a strange fungus that shows signs of intellect. So he decides to attempt to recreate a intelligent life from a plant. Hoping to earn a glory from the Royal Horticultural Society for this achievement, Gregor involves Simon into this experiment, ignoring that intelligence can't be controlled and that the only way this plant can flourish is to use a deceased corpse for the substrate. The experiment works too well. Called Chloe, it flourishes, showing signs of intelligence and creating a peculiar found family. As she flourishes so the risks of being discovered by the outside, pushing this family to desperate measures.

A botanical daughter is a brilliant, witty and peculiar queer horror and I loved every single page of it. It's original and so unique! The story is told by multiple POVs, Simon's, Gregor's and Jennifer's, their housekeeper, while following this experiment, between moral questions about what's life and intelligence, revenge's driven plot, found family and queer love. With wit and care it tackles themes like murder, violence, revenge, body horror in creating a Frankestein inspired story, mixing plants, fungus and blood.
The setting is truly unique. An entire botanical garden where Simon and Gregor live as a couple, following their interests, hidden from the society and letting only a few people enter in their domain and between taxidermy and botany, the story is really intriguing. Jennifer is the one who let the outside world in, with her grief and loss, her question and her love, expanding Simon's and Gregor's world and creating, with Chloe, a very peculiar family.
Chloe is a crucial part of the story. An experiment, a chance of revenge on the Royal Horticultural Society, a daughter, a lover. The reader, and the characters, ask themselves what is she, What is it. Does it/she thinks? Loves/ Is there intelligence in its/her body? What's the soul? And so on, filling the story with many questions, while following this experiment and the consequences.

I truly loved reading this book. It's a beautiful story and I was so involved in it. The characters are so unique and complex, driven by their needs and reasonings, in protecting each other, wanting answers, looking for revenge and recognition.
So brilliant.

A Botanical Daughter by Noah Medlock is exactly the kind of book I want more of in 2024. This book is about two gay men, their housekeeper, and their mushroom daughter. With some body horror and a Frankensteinesque setup, this debut book will definitely be a memorable one!

This book has a writing style that took me a little while to get used to but once I did, I couldn’t put it down. I think the themes in this book were very strong, especially the theme of creating life and what that means for both the creator and the creation.

I think having a decent knowledge of plants and fungi will help a lot with the overall experience of this book. There are a lot of technical terms used for things which I loved being a huge plant person but it may make it confusing for other readers. I would not classify this as a romance at all but there are some romantic moments that were very sweet.

This is the second book I would classify as “gay cottagecore horror” that I have read recently and I’m so here for it. I need so many more books that feel like this. I also recently read Frankenstein so having those vibes in this book helped it a lot! This is an author I know I will keep reading from in the future!

This is a botanical take on Mary Shelly's Frankenstein, set in industrial revolution England and exploring the close-mindedness of the time, found family, the ethics of creation... The idea is very interesting, I love the setting, the characters sounded very promising and this novel was meant to be similar to Mexican Gothic. Truthfully, I was all ready to love this... but sadly this fell flat for me.
Maybe this book had the bad luck of coming after an amazing streak, I must have given 5 stars to the last 3 novels I read because their voices were all so compelling - and by comparison A Botanical Daughter read as bland.
Things happen, but they're not very interesting, in fact, no one was very interesting and I simply couldn't care for any of them. There was not much of a personality to this book and that is pretty sad because there is a good idea fully explored in a neat story, but the way it's told was too distant and didn't make me feel anything.

I struggled to get into this novel due to its writing style and pacing, but I love the premise and am sure other readers will adore it. .

What a debut novel of pure imagination, a dash of decadence, a little sauciness mixed with some electrifying horror creates the truly unforgettable Botanical Daughter. Simon and Gregory, more than just friends, live in the surreal botanical environment that is Grimfern, a vast greenhouse of living plants. Simon occupies the basement with his taxidermy workstation, and Gregory the upper level of this glass sanctuary. Gregory dreams of success at the Royal Horticultural Society and his experiments have led him to believe that there could be intelligent life within plants. Within his haven a lone orchid appears to have a fungal guardian shielding the fragrant petals from direct sunlight…..” A shallow glass bowl about a foot in diameter contained an inch of soil and a seething mass of sinews. These tendrils caressed and cocooned a gorgeous orchid”.....As part of his vision and to ensure a successful outcome of this most outlandish of experiments, Gregory needs a human corpse to act as a “substrate” thus incubating the orchid and fungus and combining their intelligence……Gregory will then be recognised as a true genius by the RHS merging plant life and human brilliance.

There is certainly a nod to Frankenstein in the revealing of this tale, but I thought the storytelling and the use of language was exceptional and highly entertaining. The cast of characters from the unfortunate Julian Mallory the current President of RHS ( whose position Gregory aspires to) and the delightfully named Rosalinda Smeralda-Bland…”a sumptuous woman of continental extraction” all add to the readability and the delightful sequence of events as they unfold. Those readers who crave a little spilling of blood will not be disappointed and the final scenes create a perfect conclusion to an amazing story. An exceptional debut novel and one that I enjoyed very much.

This book is the second of 2024 that I’ve read all in one day. The gorgeous cover led me to a gripping narrative, and I couldn’t sleep until I reached the end. Medlock’s novel combines sumptuous, visceral details to create a work of queer beauty.

For those sensitive to gore, I will warn that the novel has a few scenes of graphic violence and descriptions of taxidermy, but the horror is primarily psychological and metaphysical.

The book follows three primary characters, Gregor, Simon, and Jennifer, with some scientific notes and letters included as well. The three of them are all different, flawed people, but all are united via their homosexuality and love of Chloe, the fungi/human hybrid creature created in a secluded greenhouse. They all also grow throughout the novel, with no character remaining static. The way all three navigate their past traumas and ideas of identity and family are the heart of the book.

Gregor, a botanist who specializes in fungi, and his partner, Simon, a taxidermist are perhaps the two more obvious standout characters in their juxtaposition. They view life differently based on their pursuits and backgrounds; they cope with difficulties in different, albeit unhealthy, ways based on their unique neuroses. Their relationship, romantic or otherwise, is not simple or easy, but all the more engrossing for it.

However, for me, it was Jennifer who captured my attention. A fledgling lesbian who lost her best friend and love, who finds herself given new opportunities within Gregor and Simon’s sphere, and who offers more spirit and humanity than either man does. She was the most relatable character for me and the one I rooted for the most.

I would highly recommend this book, and I’ll be on the lookout for any future Medlock offerings.

This story reminded a lot of Frankenstein and I'm here for that! It was a really beautifully written novel and creepy and unreal in the best ways possible. really recommend it!

This was brilliant! A weird and creepy book with echoes of Frankenstein and LGBT rep. It was weird, engaging and often poignant
Really enjoyed this

Thanks to NetGalley for the arc

This is a Frankenstein-esque novel about a botanist who does some pretty weird things with plants, fungi, and a body. But it's also a love story of sorts and that's the beauty of it.

Two men in the late 1800s live a secluded life inside of a greenhouse. One is a botanist and the other a taxidermist. They are in love but can't allow that to be made public.

When the botanist discovers a new species of fungi that has the ability to "think" on its own, he has visions of greatness. But, in his quest to determine what actually constitutes life and intelligence, he'll need a body. By grafting various plants, fungi, and other natural ingredients into the husk of a corpse, he might have something that is alive and becoming sentient.

Yes, things will get unruly with this half plant half woman creation as it becomes more and more aware but it's the feeling of family for these two men that is at the crux of the story. They consider this creation their own daughter, treating it like a human being and taking on a young woman to act as governess for it. But all of these human emotions might be reciprocated in violent ways.

This is a very beautifully written novel that isn't about the blood and gore but about the emotional and mental stress of, perhaps, having created life but not knowing what to do with it. Is it sentient or is it just responding to outside stimuli? Do you keep it locked away or do you let it live a semi normal life? What happens when feelings of awe turn into love and affection? These are the themes covered in this book and the author does so wilth a deft hand.

I highly recommend this novel if you're looking for something different and something that will grip you emotionally along the way.

Thank you NetGalley for a free e-galley of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Noah Medlock's "A Botanical Daughter" is a striking debut that melds the genres of horror and LGBTQIAP+ fiction into a captivating narrative, reminiscent of the gothic charm found in "Mexican Gothic" and the scientific curiosity of "The Lie Tree." Set in the Victorian era, the novel tells the story of Simon and Gregor, two gentlemen living a concealed life in a botanical garden, away from the prying eyes of society. Their tranquil existence takes a dark turn with Gregor's Frankenstein-esque experiment, leading to the creation of Chloe, a plant-based entity with unsettling intelligence.

Medlock's writing is rich in detail and atmosphere, capturing the essence of Victorian London and the secluded world of the botanical garden. The relationship between Simon and Gregor, hidden within this haven of flora, is portrayed with sensitivity and depth, offering a poignant glimpse into the challenges faced by LGBTQIAP+ individuals in historical contexts.

The horror elements of the novel are deftly interwoven with this historical backdrop. The creation of Chloe, born from a fusion of plant matter and a human corpse, is both fascinating and macabre. Medlock skillfully explores the ethical and moral dilemmas surrounding this experiment, examining the consequences of playing god and the uncontrollable nature of creation.

However, the novel's ambitious blending of genres and themes may not appeal to all readers. The combination of botanical science, horror, and LGBTQIAP+ romance is unique, but it demands a willingness to engage with a narrative that defies conventional genre boundaries.

"A Botanical Daughter" is an extraordinary tale that resonates with themes of family, love, and the pursuit of knowledge, all shrouded in a veneer of gothic horror. Medlock's novel is a noteworthy addition to the queer horror genre, offering a fresh and imaginative perspective that is both intellectually stimulating and emotionally resonant. This book is an excellent choice for readers seeking a novel that combines historical depth, horror, and a celebration of queer identities.