The In Crowd

The In Crowd by Charlotte Vassell, 424 pages

DI Caius Beauchamp was just trying to enjoy a bad play after his date stood him up when the next thing he knows, he's sitting next to a dead guy covered in vomit. As he looks into who this guy was and what he was even doing at this horrible drunken production of The Importance of Being Earnest, Caius learns that the dead man was in London looking into a cold case, the disappearance of a teen girl from a remote boarding school. Soon, Caius has taken up the banner and is simultaneously investigating this 15-year-old case as he also looks into the death of a woman pulled out of the Thames.

I feel like that was a horrible description of a book that ties together both of these cases, as well as the snooty upper crust of British society (that bit hinges on a surprisingly likeable milliner) in a compelling way. The twists were good and Vassell hit the sweet spot of letting the reader figure it out just barely before the characters did. This is the second in a series, and stood well on its own, even though I haven't read the first one yet. But I definitely will!

Where The Drowned Girls Go

 Where the Drowned Girls Go by Seanan McGuire, 150 pages. 

It's January, which means it's time for another Wayward Children book! Because Seanan McGuire is an angel who publishes like clockwork. (This is the seventh book in the series, and there have been many posts on this blog about others, but here's Kara's post about the first).

Ever since she came back from The Moors the Drowned Gods have been haunting Cora's dreams, leaving her unable to sleep or find peace in the water where she has always felt at home. In her desperation Cora asks Eleanor West to transfer her to the other school they are told about, the school for people who want to forget everything that happened to them.

The Whitethorn Institute isn't as kind as Eleanor West's School for Wayward Children. Here everything is about order and control. Children are taught that the doors are poisonous delusions and that they must learn to deny the things they know to be true. Soon Cora is forced to question how a school full of heroes allows this place full of monsters to continue.

This book is stunning, which is hardly surprising given that this may well be my favorite series ever. That being said, this book is a little harder to read than many of the others in this series, because it's pretty heartbreaking throughout. These children are put in an environment designed to destroy them, and next to the kindness and camaraderie that suffuses so much of this series it's especially painful to read. But this book is also powerful and defiant. It is about Cora (and many besides her) refusing to be destroyed or made small. I loved if, and if you haven't read these book you should start immediately. 

The Lying Game

The Lying Game / Ruth Ware, 370 pp., read by Imogen Church

Four best friends reconvene for a reunion at their boarding school where they spent their formative years hated by their classmates for their clique-y game of, well, lying.  Things get interesting when a murdered sheep is found on the property of one of the four just before the reunion is set to begin.

Plain Bad Heroines

Plain Bad Heroines by Emily Danforth, 464 pages

In 1903, two young girls, Clara and Flo, had fallen in love at Brookhants, their boarding school in Rhode Island. It was at Brookhants that the pair was chased into a yellow jacket nest in the woods by Clara's angry cousin, leading the lovers to their painful death. This event became the first of several unfortunate deaths that caused Brookhants to gain a reputation for being cursed. More than 100 years later, a young woman, Merritt, has written The Happenings at Brookhants, a history of the school and the many women who fell victim to its "curse," and now that book is being made into a movie. 

Plain Bad Heroines alternately tells the story of Brookhants headmistress Libbie and her lover, Alex, as well as the story of Merritt and the two women (Harper and Audrey) who have been cast as Clara and Flo in the movie. It's an intriguing, creepy, queer story, with a very spooky setting and more than enough yellow jackets. Good for fans of both gothic fiction and horror movies.

Oligarchy

Oligarchy: a Novel / Scarlett Thomas, 230 p.

Natasha (Tash) has been vaulted from a life as a poor Moscow teen living with her single mom to being a student at a posh English boarding school, thanks to the intervention of her mysterious father, a Russian oligarch whose existence Tash has only just learned about.

Tash adjusts to her new life quickly but becomes swept up in the cruel behavior and obsessive eating habits of her classmates.  When one of the girls dies and a teacher disappears, Tash begins to wonder whether there is more going on than anorexia. 

Tash has an intriguing voice that definitely captures the perfectly blended folly and wisdom of adolescence, and much of this novel is darkly comical.  An unusual niche read.