In 1718, pregnant Eliza Tally is packed off to London. She is to work as a maid for apothecary Grayson Black, have the child or get rid of it, and do so while protecting the perception of her own virtue and the good name of the father of the child. What transpires instead is a tragic and twisted tale of scientific experimentation on mothers and unborn children. Eliza and a second maid, Mary, are psychologically tortured by the apothecary and his wife in hopes that they will bear monsters instead of healthy babies.

It is 1718 and, in a small parish near Newcastle, Eliza Tally, a headstrong girl of sixteen, embarks on a reckless love affair that will prove her undoing. When her lover casts her off, denying their union, she is forced to travel to London, a city that attracts and alarms her in equal measure. There she takes up a position in the house of an apothecary, Grayson Black, whom she trusts to salvage what remains of her reputation.

From the highly acclaimed author of The Great Stink comes a gloriously written tale of consuming passions and obsessions. Set against the clamour and roar of eighteenth-century London, The Nature of Monsters brings vividly to life a world where the line separating science and madness is dangerously blurred, and where a single life counts for little in the relentless pursuit of progress.