The lives of Mary Wollstonecraft and her daughter, Mary Shelley, make for an iconic tale of two separate centuries and the creation of the amazing texts they left behind --- Wollstonecraft’s bruising, forceful treatise, A VINDICATION OF THE RIGHTS OF WOMAN, a prescient classic of feminist writing, and Shelley’s FRANKENSTEIN, one of the most enduring (and original) horror stories ever created. Stephanie Marie Thornton’s HER LOST WORDS looks at the life stories of these remarkable women and how one mother’s generational struggles gave license for a daughter’s unique fictional offerings.

"HER LOST WORDS is a fun and informative read, grabbing at your heart and mind at once and giving greater worth to the idea that someday we all could find a way to support and celebrate each other in whatever partnership we wish to have."

In 1792, Mary Wollstonecraft lives with a violent father who doesn’t want her to do much but stay in her place. She ends up writing about the idea of gender equality when no one, especially a woman, has bothered to look at the situation between the sexes. Mary lives a life challenging the norms of her society and becoming a forthright and lasting voice on the liberation and education of women. When she has her own child, with a man who sees her as an intellectual equal, she becomes ill and decides she can’t let the world be the purveyor of her striving for freedom and a life that makes her independent of men.

Mary Godwin is a firebrand in her own right and is fascinated by the life her mother led. Wishing to walk in her mother’s footsteps, she runs away in 1818 with poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, a married man, and wanders Paris at 15 looking for the very footpaths her mother walked during the French Revolution. An aspiring writer herself, Mary investigates the dearest details of her mother’s life, hoping she can find her own passion and her own means of leaving a mark on the world.

It is clear that the two Marys are as individualistic and iconoclastic as any writers and thinkers have ever been. Thornton takes their paths and sets to comparing and contrasting their ideals, morals and talents by giving each of them a voice in every other chapter. She builds tension about the outcomes of their passions regardless of the fact that most people reading this novel will know at least a good portion of their biographies. In a fitting voice, each character is allowed to take us through their adventures through their own eyes, and there is not a moment that we can be sure what comes next. The juxtaposition of their personal emotional reveals and well-researched histories gives us a chance to see them as family, women and, ultimately, equals in thought and need.

The women's spouses are securely drawn, and their belief that their wives have something important to share with the world is key. However, never once do we feel that the love the women have for their partners is dampened by their individual career advancements. It is a story that lives by the tenets that these couples lived by --- they are equal to each other, as is their work. It is a compelling ride when the gender wars that are firing up all around the globe find this kind of partnership almost impossible to create in this day and age.

HER LOST WORDS is a fun and informative read, grabbing at your heart and mind at once and giving greater worth to the idea that someday we all could find a way to support and celebrate each other in whatever partnership we wish to have. Thornton’s book is easy enough to read as a beach bag accompaniment, but its happenings will stay with you for many days after you have enjoyed this story on a nice sunny day.