My Mad Scientist

In the shadows of Victorian London, Alice Lumsley's life has been a sequence of entrapment and despair. Committed to Bedlam Asylum at just ten years old for "female hysteria," she spent nine years enduring the cold stones and sterile horrors of an institution that nearly broke her spirit. But when the threat of a lobotomy looms, Alice stages a desperate, violent escape, plunging into a stormy London night with the city's blue-coated "Peelers" hot on her heels. Her flight leads her to a misjudged window and into the home of Henry Jekyll, a refined, twenty-year-old medical scholar. Unlike the doctors of her past, Henry offers warmth, safety, and a gentleness Alice has never known. As he and his loyal butler, Mr. Poole, work to hide her from a city-wide "Loon Hunt," a profound and peculiar bond forms between the two outcasts. Henry sees Alice not as a patient, but as a resilient woman of strength and perseverance. However, Henry is quietly burdened by his own obsession: a serum born from his grandfather's alchemical research. He seeks to isolate the "good Self" from the "bad Self," believing that freeing the soul from its internal struggles could cure humanity's darkest ailments. When Henry finally tests the shimmering blood-orange liquid on himself, he gives life to Edward Hyde-a shorter, sharper, and terrifyingly liberated version of himself who revels in malice and debauchery. As Alice and Henry's romance deepens into a promise of marriage, the experiment spirals out of control. Hyde's violent impulses lead to the brutal murder of Sir Danvers Carew and the tragic death of Henry's friend, Dr. Lanyon.&nb