A Season of Monstrous Conceptions

English language

Published June 8, 2023 by Doherty Associates, LLC, Tom.

ISBN:
978-1-250-88401-5
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(4 reviews)

Lina Rather's A Season of Monstrous Conceptions is an eldritch historical fantasy of midwifery, monstrosity, and the rending of the world, for fans of The Essex Serpent and The Death of Jane Lawrence.

"An entrancing and transformative queer tale of cosmic horror."―Caitlin Starling

" A blood sacrifice of a novel. " ― Meg Elison

In 17th-century London, unnatural babies are being born, with eyes made for the dark and webbed digits suited to the sea.

Sarah Davis is intimately familiar with such strangeness―having hidden her uncanny nature all her life and fled to London under suspicious circumstances, Sarah starts over as a midwife’s apprentice to a member of the illegal Worshipful Company of Midwives, hoping to carve out for herself an independent life. But with each new unnatural birth, the fear in London grows of the Devil's work.

When the wealthy Lady Wren hires her to see her through her …

2 editions

A surprisingly fun exploration of some heavy themes

I loved this book for several things:

  • How real and solid the historical-London setting felt. I'm used to that sort of thing feeling very flimsy, but this is an author who clearly does deep research and lets it suffuse the writing without getting all 'splainy.
  • The very palpable tension between the protagonist's precarious position and her need to have some freedom.
  • The delightful-if-implausable retconning of Sir Christopher Wren's secret motive for shaping London the way he did.

#SFFBookClub

A Season of Monstrous Conceptions

Novellas are inherently short on characterizaton, but in my opinion the characterizaton of London/English lilfe of this time is well done here, it made quite the impression. I also really liked the descriptions of the supernatural happenings; concise and impressive always, grand and awe-inspiring where appropriate.

(I started it in the afternoon and stayed up very late to finish it.)

September 2025 #SFFBookClub

A Season of Monstrous Conceptions

This was a fun novella about 17th century London midwifery where there's a spate of babies being born with monstrous appearances and magical abilities. This is the September 2025 #SFFBookClub pick.

There's a fun angle of respectability politics, of not wanting to be publicly seen as queer so that Sarah can get better midwife clientele (and survive as a widowed woman), but also taking the angle of her having to cover the parts of herself that are uncanny. (Sure, sure, I am a sucker for the metaphor of queer as monstrous.) There's also a strong gendered metaphor of Sir Christopher Wren, creepily representing science and men cataloguing the world (and thinking they truly know it) versus the midwives having their own knowledge of other worlds and of magic.

Overall, this book met my expectations for exactly what I thought it was going to be in a good way. I love …