Publisher: Picadilly Press
Format: Paperback
Published: 1st January 2015
Number of Pages: 352
Book: For Review
Genre: Mystery, Crime
Fiction, Murder Mystery, Historical, Suspense, Thriller, Action-Adventure,
Middle Grade, YA, YA-Child Crossover
Recommended
Age: 10+
Contains: Death, Mild Swearing and Alcohol References
Author's Site: Julie Berry
At Prickwillow Place, Disgraceful
Mary Jane, Smooth Kitty and their fellow students are keeping a deadly
secret.
When the headmistress of Saint
Etheldreda’s School for Young Ladies drops dead at Sunday dinner, her seven
pupils agree on a clever scheme: to bury their teacher in the vegetable garden,
dress up Stout Alice to pose in her place, and educate themselves.
This is tricky enough in a small
Victorian community, but when the girls deduce that their teacher was poisoned
– it was the veal! – they realise there is also a murderer on the prowl…
An outrageous plot of villainy,
farce and friendship starring seven brilliant young girls.
What’s Inside? Cyanide. Manners.
Danger!
Review:
"Killed?"
she squeaked. "Did you say killed?"
"Killed," Dour
Elinor said. "Murdered."
She savoured the R's in her pronunciation: murrrrderrrred.
"Oh.
Oh my…"
The seven girls of Saint Etheldreda's
School for Young Ladies have been sent to the school for various reasons,
mainly for the strict traditional teachings of its headmistress Mrs Plackett. Who mysteriously dropped dead, along with her
brother, at Sunday dinner. Poisoned, the girls deduce, by the veal.
Faced with the possibility of getting sent
home to their families, and away from the sisterhood the seven have formed,
Smooth Kitty declares that there's a way they can stay at Saint Etheldreda's:
if they pretend that their headmistress is still alive, bury the bodies in the
garden and dress Stout Alice up as Mrs Plackett. All the while, of
course, teaching their own lessons and trying to find out who murdered their
headmistress.
There's a murder loose in their village and
the seven will need to keep their wits about them to catch the killer before
they strike again!
The
Scandalous Sisterhood had a tough act to follow
when I picked it up: I recently read Murder
Most Unladylike, which I loved to pieces. And so, despite the amazing
things I've heard about The Scandalous
Sisterhood, I was worried for it. But as soon as I opened the book,
saw the portraits of the seven and began reading, I realised I'd been worrying
in vain: The Scandalous Sisterhood is
brilliant! I adore the Victorian era and loved the quirkiness and
mischeviousness of the seven girls – and the fun, interesting plotline too!
None of the girls were stereotypical of the
Victorian era – or any era, really. Since there were seven main
characters, it was only natural to prefer some and to find the others a bit
flat, but I must say that I liked all of the girls. I found keeping track
of them easy, thanks a lot to the cute, beautiful illustrations of the girls at
the beginning and the little characters' relations summaries. I found
this just too cute and very helpful!
I think my favourite character was probably
Pocked Louise: she was very clever, determined and rather unique for the era as
she was a girl obsessed with science. The strangest character was the odd
and spookily funny Dour Elinor: her obsession with death was disturbing, but
the character's little one-liners were very amusing! Smooth Kitty and
Disgraceful Mary Jane were, I think, the two ring-leaders of the sisterhood.
Kitty was clever and funny, if a little bold at time. And Mary Jane
was scandalous and hilarious – even if a little painful! Stout Alice was brilliant
– poor thing, though, dressing up like a dead old woman! She was funny
and clever though. And I loved Dear Roberta and Dull Martha: bless them,
they were so sweet!
Whilst all of the characters were
pre-or-early-ish-teens, a fair few felt older than they would feel these days.
After all, girls were expected to grow up fast in the Victorian era!
I think some people might get put off by the fact that there's an
adjective in front of each of the girls' names, but I thought it was cute and
funny – it also helped in the beginning to keep track of the girls'
personalities!
Berry's writing was absolutely perfect for
the time period – and utterly addictive! It was a little confusing,
admittedly, because the perspective switched between the girls quite a bit, but
it was exciting and hooking nonetheless. It was also witty, funny,
suspenseful and at times painful – those girls really got themselves into some
dreadful scrapes! Which was so funny!
I love a good murder mystery, as I may have
mentioned once or twice in previous reviews, and I'm generally pretty good at
solving the murder. Call it too much CSI
or psychicness (the answer is obviously psychicness – is that even a word,
though?), but I'm not half bad at finding killers. And yet, for most of The Scandalous Sisterhood, I was just
completely in the dark. I saw a few things coming a mile off, but the
killer... I did not suspect
that one! I loved all the twists – the plot turned out to be way more
complex than one would originally think and it was awesome! Oh, and I
liked the romance-aspects of the book: it was really subtle and used
brilliantly to move the plot along.
The
Scandalous Sisterhood was a brilliant book
and such great fun! I read it in one sitting and was left desperate for
more scandalous adventures! I loved the ending, how everything finished
perfectly, but that it also left lots of scope for more adventures for our
sisterhood of seven! I really hope there's another book!
Star Rating:
4 Out of 5
4 Out of 5
Read this
book if you liked:
Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan
Doyle
Wells & Wong by Robin
Stevens
Nancy Drew by Kathryn Keene
Young Sherlock Holmes by Andrew
Lane
Happy Reading
Megan
* This
book was received from Picadilly Press in exchange for an honest review
No comments:
Post a Comment