Edinburgh, late nineteenth century. Little Jack is born on a day so cold that his heart remains frozen. Madeleine the midwife replaces his heart with a cuckoo-clock. It will work, as long as Jack follows the rules, mainly not falling in love. But his encounter with a fiery-eyed girl singing on a street corner and his decision to chase after her will test the resistance of his makeshift heart to the breaking point.

Obsessed with violating the laws of nature and of life and death, scientist Victor Frankenstein constructs a creature from the limbs of the dead. Once jolted into life, the creature proves to be even more human than his creator. He is knowledgeable, wise and also possesed with a conscience. Unable to inspire love, he chooses to inspire fear and vows to avenge the man who created and then abandoned him.