Okay I give up. I've spent days trying to explain the muses in this and I just cannot coherently do it! You just gotta read it to get it.

I think of the 3 Cat Winters books I have read, it's my least favourite and I can see why not everyone would love it. I also feel like I want to reread this after having read some of Poe's work (yes, curse at me. I've never read anything by Edgar Allan Poe).

I think the strength of this book was it played with such an iconic character that we know such little about which is just so perfect considering the type of work he produced. I always just saw Poe as this:



and never thought about him having to go through life pre-40. It's kind of awesome to find these large open gaps in peoples lives and just mess with it. I love that Cat Winters so clearly always does her research into the time period and definitely into Poe. Reading the authors notes and finding out about all the misinformation out there about Poe like the drug use (I had definitely heard about that before this book).

I think my issue with the book is the ending seemed a bit abrupt for Poe's adopted parents. They play such a large role in who he is in this book and who he becomes. It's also a small snap of his life that we know sort of what happened. I wish there had been an epilogue with his mother or something.

Definitely a future re-read. Also, Winters and [a:Laura E. Weymouth|16706932|Laura E. Weymouth|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1507769039p2/16706932.jpg] need to share the secret as to how in the HELL they keep getting stunning dust jackets and stunning under dust jackets!