La Llorona in the Machine - Mary Shelley's School for Monsters, #1

A 2023 Foreword INDIES Book of the Year finalist and IBPA Benjamin Franklin Gold Award Winner.

A supernatural MARY SHELLEY, Shel, and her misfit monsters crew use dark magic, friendship, and supernatural fighting powers to rescue creatures in crisis like La Llorona.

In 1812, a teenage MARY GODWIN (SHELLEY) becomes trapped in a mausoleum with occult scientist DR. M. He tries to reanimate a sewn together corpse with a combination of electricity and the book of the dead, NECRO. Mary attempts to save the living book from the madmen but ends up splitting herself into two beings—one who continues on to write Frankenstein, and the other who becomes SHEL, an immortal and powerful monster bound to Necro, who saves monsters from the evil humans who wish them harm.

Shel teamed up with Frank, Dr. M's failed experiment, and Necro, the powerfully cute book of the dead, to rescue monsters and start a school for them deep in the Primal Woods. The legendary Medusa and local forest wisp, Will, complete their monster-rescuing team. The infamous bogeywoman from Mexican American folklore, La Llorona, has been kidnapped by a villainous video game programmer, Edith Sharp. In an attempt to make the scariest game on the market, Sharp traps La Llorona in the game, and the children playing it are going missing. The team needs to rescue La Llorona before the townspeople get involved and endanger the monsters.