Review

Lady Ela, a well born but not well off 13 year old scamp, makes friends with a highborn brother and sister who’ve recently arrived in the neighbourhood. However, her friendship/crush on the brother, Keston, angers her best friend, the very pretty, wealthy and vindictive Poppy. She arranges for Ela’s reputation to be ruined, Kes believes her, and Ela is sent off to a rehabilitative boarding school for well born ruined girls. There she meets a mentor, who bequeaths her enough money for her to exact her revenge.

Sweeping back into London with a new name and a new, older, taller and comelier look, Ela sets about breaking hearts and ruining Poppy, now attached to handsome and eligible Kes. But is revenge really what Ela wants? Might she be in danger of forfeiting revenge in favour of love?

*

This was enjoyable and reasonably well written. The characters conform to type and the dialogue sometimes has that slightly stilted YA Regency feel. It’s not strictly historical – it bills itself as ahistorical, with contemporary attitudes towards sexuality. It’s also described as The Count of Monte Cristo meets Bridgerton – and I’d say that’s pretty accurate. Fun to read, but I wasn’t glued to it. It’s told in alternating present (Ela enacting her plan for revenge) and past (young Ela being manipulated & ruined) chapters, and in first person.

368 pp. Good for Year 7 & up.

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It’s been a few weeks since I’ve read this, but from memory, there’s only kissing, but Ela is ruined by false allegations that she had premarital sex (euphemistically Regency-style expressed); nastily vindictive false friend; lies; rumour spreading, including a rumour of sexually transmitted infection (euphemistically called “pox”) ; main romance is mlw; minor romances are mlw, wlw and (potentially) mlm.

*

Howard, A. (2023). Queen bee. Random House.

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I read this novel via my school library — support your local library!