In this remix of Robert Louis Stevenson's novella Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Gabriel Utterson is not an adult lawyer but a 15-year-old boy studying medicine in London. At the boarding house where Black students stay, he meets and falls in love with Henry Jekyll, the son of Dr. Jekyll, one of his instructors who is also obsessed with his research. Gabriel works hard, even though he knows that the school will never officially make him a doctor, and revels in his relationship with Henry. After their first summer apart, however, Henry grows aloof, rebuffing Gabriel's affection. Furthermore, the mysterious Hyde now lives at Henry's house, and Gabriel begins to grow jealous about how close he seems to be with Henry, even as he realizes that something is amiss. Bayron captures the tone and pace of a Victorian novel in Gabriel's first-person narrative, uncoiling the dramatic plot precisely yet at a pace that won't lose the reader. The emotional elements and conflict add tension, and this latest in the Remixed Classics series will satisfy readers.

A mysterious stranger captivates in this reimagining of a Robert Louis Stevenson tale.Gabriel Utterson sets out as a student at the London School for Medical Studies determined to become a successful professional despite the discriminatory hiring practices of the Victorian era. He takes a room at a nearby boardinghouse for Black students run by kindhearted Miss Laurie. There he meets handsome fellow resident Henry Jekyll, whose father teaches at the university they both attend. Gabriel's budding relationship with Henry causes much campus gossip, straining Dr. Jekyll's already tenuous position as an underappreciated, often disrespected instructor. The whirlwind romance between Henry and Gabriel soon unravels due to the combined racism and homophobia pervading the medical school establishment. Amid scandalous hints of their affair, Henry's father is fired, and both young men are expelled from the institution in disgrace. Henry becomes secretive-and an oddly familiar man named Hyde is spotted coming and going freely from the Jekyll home, sparking Gabriel's jealousy and curiosity. He is taken on as law clerk by the lecherous Sir Danvers Carew, a powerful White man working in medical law, but Carew's escalating harassment of Gabriel eventually leads to violence that sends Gabriel to a friend's house for help. He follows a twisting path to uncovering Henry's secret. Addressing invisibility, power, and passion, Bayron's updated classic simmers with Gothic imagery, romance, and a robust exploration of what it means to be whole.A vibrant retelling. (content warning, author's note) (Historical mystery. 13-18)