The following version of this novel was used to create this study guide: White, Kiersten. The Dark Descent of Elizabeth Frankenstein. Ember. 2018. Paperback.

Seventeen-year-old Elizabeth Lavenza travels with her best friend, Justine, to the city of Ingolstadt to find Elizabeth’s love, Victor. Once there, she learns that many people have gone missing and that those closest to him have not seen him for months. However, she meets a bookseller named Mary who leads them to Victor’s home. Once there, Elizabeth finds him unconscious due to a fever in a messy house. In the attic, she finds his experiments and a chest full of body parts that she assumes came from the local graveyard and charnel house. Once she gets him to a doctor, Elizabeth returns and sets fire to the house to remove all of the evidence. When Victor wakes up, he promises to follow her back to the Frankenstein estate and she and Justine leave. However, Elizabeth thinks that something grotesque is following her.

Back at the Frankenstein estate, Elizabeth waits for Victor by helping Justine with the children. However, when Justine’s mother passes away, Justine is bedridden and Elizabeth must take care of them herself. One day, while they are out with Victor’s father, William goes missing. While they are searching for him, his body is put on the picnic blanket, and the locket Elizabeth gave him is missing. It is later found next to Justine, who is accused of the crime and forced to confess. She is executed and Elizabeth is devastated, especially when Victor leaves her a second time.

Determined to secure her future with the Frankensteins, Elizabeth follows Victor to Scotland. Once there, she finds his laboratory and overhears him talking to the monster he created who is asking for a mate. Furthermore, she finds Justine’s body sewn in various ways. Once she hears Victor being arrested for the disappearance of their best friend, Henry, she takes Justine’s body to a church and gives her a proper burial in hopes of saving her soul. She then returns to the Frankenstein estate and waits for Victor.

Once he returns, the two are immediately wed, and it is revealed that Victor’s father knew of Elizabeth’s extensive family fortune that she was unaware of. Now that she is married into the Frankenstein family before she turned 21, he expects her to pay him back for all the years he spent raising her. Victor stands up for her and the two go to Elizabeth’s home in Lake Como. It is there that she realizes that Victor is the one who killed William and framed Justine. He has her committed to an asylum where no one will believe her story. However, she is rescued by Mary after a month and a half and the two set off to kill Victor.

The two return to the Frankenstein household where they learn that Victor has killed Judge Frankenstein to continue his experiments. He tells Elizabeth that he plans to create her a new body so that she will be free of pain and fear. The monster arrives and it is revealed that Victor murdered Henry and used some of his parts for the misshapen creature. Elizabeth stabs Victor as she is knocked unconscious, but wakes up to find he escaped. The monster names himself Adam and he, Elizabeth, and Mary all leave to try and bait Victor out of wherever he went to.

After a brief visit to Saint Petersburg, the three find an abandoned shack in the middle of a snowy tundra and stay there for two weeks. However, when Mary and Adam leave to find supplies, Victor arrives ready to kidnap Elizabeth. She falls into icy water in the struggle, pulling him in with her. He sinks due to his heavy furs and drowns. Elizabeth prepares for death, but later wakes up with Mary and Adam, alive.