The Second Sight of Zachary Cloudesley: The spellbinding BBC Between the Covers book club pick

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Part I started as quite interesting - we're introduced to the tragic start that Zachary has in life: mother Alice dies in childlbirth; Abel, his father is in despair; Grace Morley, together with her young daughter Leonora, becomes his wet nurse; Great Aunt Francis insists on playing a greater role in his upbringing.

Frankenstein’s creature was a fleshly automaton, made in pursuit of everlasting life, a being equally of science and of horror. At the Montgomery Family Planning Clinic, she intends to help women make their own choices for their lives and bodies.

And what of the ‘the singularity,’ a phrase coined by mathematician John von Neumann and popularised by Kurzweil in which runaway advances in AI imminently dwarf human intelligence, leading to unpredictable technological change? Rubber was discovered mid-century, and makers of automata quickly saw its possibilities in making ever more life-like, human-like automata. What’s wonderful with this trans character is that, some initial lack of surety about how to approach him aside, everyone embraces him and accepts him unreservedly on his terms throughout the book.

A BBC Between the Covers Book Club pick and Sunday Times Historical Fiction Book of the Month, for fans of PANDORA, THE ESSEX SERPENT and THE NIGHT CIRCUS.Why can these clocks not be made to run backward and take him to the day before, to the life he had supposed he would have? And I’ll also be wrapping up some copies of Kit de Waal’s memoir, Without Warning and Only Sometimes(Tinder Press), which is as startling and fabulous as its title. I think this could have been partly due to the focus switching to Zachary who, despite being the title character, was not as engaging as Frances or Mrs Morley.