The Alchemy of MoonlightReview posted November 11, 2025.
Dreamscape Media, 2023. 9 hours, 44 minutes.
Review written September 16, 2023, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review
Is it just me, or does anyone else get a crush on eaudiobook narrators with dreamy voices? As soon as I heard the first few sentences from Will Watt, I was hooked on listening to this book – never mind that he was talking about a young marquis discovering a severed hand next to the path on the estate where he was hiding out as a servant.
This book riffs off the gothic classic The Mysteries of Udolpho, except with a gay man named Emile as the protagonist instead of a young lady named Emily. (I’ve never read the original, but I have read Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey that spoofed it, and I checked Wikipedia for the basic plot after a castle called Udolpho was mentioned.)
There’s a love triangle in this version involving our marquis and the local doctor’s apprentice, as well as a count attached to the estate where Emile is serving. But Emile’s pose as a servant must not be found out, because his aunt is in charge of his own estate until he comes of age. If he doesn’t give up his fondness for men and marry, she will have him committed to an asylum.
And things get even more complicated. The reader will be much quicker than Emile to figure out the connection between body parts on the path and the fact that family members send almost all the servants away once a month, but those who remain administer injections all night long as they suffer and writhe in their beds.
I won’t say much about the plot. It’s based on a gothic novel, and yes, it’s over-the-top. But I think it helped to listen to a skilled narrator (with a dreamy voice) reading about the events completely in character, completely startled when supernatural things happen. Hearing his skepticism – but inability to discount the evidence of his own eyes – helps the listener keep their own skepticism at bay. I was with them every step of the way.
This book is an adventure with many gruesome moments, but if you’re in the mood for some melodrama at all, you’ll have a great romp with this. Not having read the original, I’m still quite confident that the ending in this version is quite different. And it certainly surprised me.
I do recommend listening to this one. (Is it just me? That voice!)