‘Cleopatra and Frankenstein’ unpacks dark side of modern romance

Debut author Coco Mellors’ novel Cleopatra and Frankenstein is a wonderfully nuanced exploration of the reality of love and loneliness in our modern world. With complex characters and beautiful writing, this novel is not one to miss.

Mellors, despite being a debut novelist, writes with the depth of an experienced writer and an old soul. Cleopatra and Frankenstein is a romantic tour de force boasting a unique writing style and gritty realism.

‘CLEOPATRA AND FRANKENSTEIN’ TV ADAPTATION IN THE WORKS

According to Coco Mellors’s website, her debut Cleopatra and Frankenstein is currently being adapted into a TV series with Warner Bros Studio. Variety reports that Maggie Kiley is to be the director.

In his article for Variety, Joe Otterson states that Kiley is a highly sought-after director. Her directing credits include the Netflix survival drama Keep Breathing starring Melissa Barrera. She has also directed series episodes for Pretty Little Liars, Dr. Death and Dirty John: The Betty Broderick Story.

With Mellors’ characters and Maggie Kiley’s eye for visuals, a Cleopatra and Frankenstein series will surely be nothing short of perfection.

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PRAISE FOR COCO MELLORS

“Insistent, stylish and utterly captivating, the prose just sings.”

Heidi James, author of ‘The Sound Mirror’.

“Luminous. A great, swooning love story, a shattering depiction of how addiction and mental illness warp our lives and a perceptive, witty portrait of globalized New York. Mellors has written a devastatingly human book. An unforgettable read.”

Sam Lansky, author of ‘The Gilded Razor’ and ‘Broken People’.

“A character-driven epic, thoroughly engrossing and entirely magnificent.”

Adam Eli, author of ‘The New Queer Conscience’.

‘CLEOPATRA AND FRANKENSTEIN’ SYNOPSIS

Twenty-four-year-old painter Cleo left behind her life in England and fled to New York City. She is still finding her place in the sleepless city when, a few months before her student visa ends, she meets Frank.

Twenty years older and a self-made success, Frank’s life is full of everything Cleo’s lacks. He offers her the chance to be happy, the freedom to paint, and the opportunity to apply for a Green Card. But their impulsive marriage irreversibly changes both their lives, and the lives of those close to them.

Each compulsively readable chapter explores the lives of Cleo, Frank, and an unforgettable cast of their closest friends and family as they grow up and grow older. In the middle of all the chaos of two lives colliding, Cleo and Frank try and find each other and themselves.

As hilarious as it is heart-breaking, entertaining as it is deeply moving, Cleopatra and Frankenstein marks the entry of a brilliant and bold new talent.

MORE ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Coco Mellors was born in London and moved to New York as a teenager. During her fifteen years in New York, she received an MFA in Fiction from New York University. In 2020, Mellors moved from east to west and settled in Los Angeles.

Cleopatra and Frankenstein is her first novel.

Cleopatra and Frankenstein is published by HarperCollins and is available for purchase from Exclusive Books stores for R270.