The Scandalous Sisterhood of Prickwillow Place by Julie Berry

 Publisher: Picadilly Press

Format: Paperback

Published: 1^st 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

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

Month of Guests 2013: Julie Berry

The lovely Julie Berry, author of the amazing All The Truth That's In Me, is here today!  Enjoy! :D

When You Least Expect It, Write It Down:
Elusive Inspiration

The idea for my new novel, All the Truth That’s in Me (Templar), was summoned unromantically into the most mundane of settings. I sat on my bed one afternoon, surrounded by piles of laundry to fold, a stack of books, and a snoozing cat. I leafed through a craft book chapter on point of view in fiction: first person, third person (limited, omniscient, and shades between), and second person, the slippery one. My purpose was to find material for an essay. I was a grad student pursuing my MFA.

I read the paragraphs about using second person, and set the book down. “Hm,” I thought. “Second person could so easily be self-indulgent. I wonder if I could do it right.”

I reached for my laptop. A novel addressed entirely to you. What you? Who is you? Why would someone have so much to tell someone else? A sense filled my mind of someone whose universe orbited around another, someone so filled with longing for a beloved that they were the only ‘you’ who mattered. Such a person would spend a lot of time waiting and watching for the beloved. They couldn’t help it. They would know that person’s habits and movements, and would notice any deviation in them. If that person didn’t appear as expected one day, as longed for …

You didn’t come, I wrote. I felt a little shiver.

I waited all evening in the willow tree, with gnats buzzing in my face and sap sticking in my hair, watching for you to return from town.

Yes, yes. The obsessive one would endure indignities like gnats and sap and far worse, so great would be her need to see the beloved. And what would the price be for such a vigil?

Mother chided me ragged for missing chores and supper…

And so the first page went, one thought following another like footsteps, with the creative brain in control, leading me along a path, pressing upon me the question, why? Why does the obsessive one feel this way? Does the beloved know what she feels?

 But you don’t know.

And you never will.

For I am forbidden from telling.

I closed the laptop. I’d filled one page. My heartbeat thumped in my ears.

What just happened here?

Starting a new story had not been my plan that day. Researching my essay was. But because I was engaged in the work of authorship, and because I listened and wrote when the little spark appeared (thank God!), a story began. The character, Judith, revealed herself to me gradually yet insistently, with a voice of clarity, vulnerability, and power. She carried herself regally from page one to page 266.

I love Judith. I do not consider myself to have made her. 

This was my miracle. I’d had other good ideas, but never one like this.

I have found creative inspiration to be both elusive and present, like a leprechaun behind my back, usually there, but too slippery to catch. Usually I spy him best when I’m not seeking him, when my mind has lapsed into a passive state of slow cognition, such as when driving or taking a walk. It helps greatly if I’ve recently been at work writing, reading, or studying. He seems to favor those activities, and fortunately, so do I.

He’s willful, though. He resists being courted, and shows up uninvited. No wonder we’re vexed by inspiration, sly imp that he is.

I’m back in the ranks now of laboring hopefuls, casting about a passive but watchful eye for any leprechauns lurking around. I remind the universe that I’m ready for miracles. I’ll need them for the new project I’m working on, one whose initial spark, naturally, was kindled on a stretch of boring highway in my filthy minivan. For flashes such as these, I carry a notebook in my purse, and I make sure to pull over before I start to write them down.

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Thank you so much, Julie!  

Hope you all enjoyed Julie's post! And don't forget to follow Julie's Site and Blog, follow her on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, and check out her books on Goodreads! :D

And keep up to date with MonthOfGuests on Twitter using #MonthOfGuests2013! And stop by tomorrow for an awesome triple threat post - Month Of Guests, The Waking World Blog Tour and the first ever Book Addicted Boys!!  :D

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I grew up on a 50-acre farm in Western New York as the youngest of seven children. I was lucky to be the caboose kid in a big family full of avid readers, with a mother who loved poetry.I had a perfect little library of children’s classics to reread to my heart’s content. I think I came close to memorizing Charlotte’s Web, the Little House books, the Great Brain series, Anne of Green Gables, Little Women, The Secret Garden, Just So Stories, Heidi, Alice in Wonderland, and A Little Princess.I dreamed of being many things – a marine biologist, a chemist, a mother, a gymnast, a Solid Gold Dancer – but always, writing was on the back of my mind. Whatever else I might be or do, I hoped writing would be part of the mix.In college I met my husband Phil. We married young and started our family soon after. Now we’re the parents of four boys, including teenagers, and we don’t know where the time went. To keep the gender balance more even in our home, we have two girl cats.After my fourth son was born, I decided that since my family dreams were now well underway, it was time to pursue writing novels. I went back to school and earned an M.F.A. in writing for children and young adults from Vermont College of the Fine Arts, where I learned from many talented and committed writers for young people. The Amaranth Enchantment was the second novel I wrote in school, and the first one to sell to a publisher. Since then I’ve written Secondhand Charm, All the Truth That’s In Me, and the Splurch Academy for Disruptive Boys series with my older sister, Sally Faye Gardner, as the illustrator.Now I’m home full-time, keeping the cats company by day while I write, and chasing the boys around in the afternoons and evenings. If you want to know if I’m working on another book now, the answer is always, “Yes.”