Madam by Phoebe Wynne is the book equivalent of having an itch you just can't scratch. It moves again whenever you think you've reached the source of the irritation. The main character, Rose, is very flat and unbelievable. As a protagonist, she is very antagonising because there is little believable agency. I also find it insulting to Tartt's "The Secret History" because these two books are definitely not in the same league. As for it being anything like "Rebecca", as I saw it claimed somewhere, please, let's be serious. I'm sorry this review reads as harsh but I feel the characters needed development, the year it was set in didn't help and it didn't feel realistic. This had all the hallmarks of being a good story, but it just didn't stretch to being credible.

Another book I left on my to be read list as I couldn’t get into it. Luckily I gave it another try and loved this odd but thrilling tale

I received access to this book via Netgalley more than a year ago and have no idea why I waited so long to read it. It's riveting - a very well-written, dark and suspenseful story that, given current battles over sexism and misogyny, feels very relevant to today.

Rose is a young teacher who surprisingly gets a job at a girls' boarding school with an intimidating reputation. Set in Scotland by the coast, it's fairly remote and secretive. From the start, Rose feels there is something wrong about the school. None of the girls in her initial classes seem interested in learning - which perhaps doesn't seem so strange. But what is strange is that the other teachers don't seem to expect them to be learning.

Rose quite gradually comes to realise that the school isn't so much providing the girls with a good education as preparing them for a very specific way of life. Parts of how this is revealed are truly horrifying.

The sense of unease is strengthened by Rose's discovery of the way the school appears to have taken charge of her ill mother, leaving Rose feeling less able to challenge some school practices for fear her mother will suffer as a result.

Phoebe Wynne brilliantly gets across just how brutal and painfully harsh life at school can be. Rose endures the usual taunts and challenges from her students, only in this case there's a more sinister subplot going on.

Despite the girls' suspicions of her - Rose is the first new teacher the school has had in some time - she manages to form genuine caring relationships with three of them. This only serves to reinforce her desire to 'save' the girls from the fate the school has in store for them.

The portrayal of Rose's relationships with other teachers, and the strategies these teachers employ to try and cope with their bizarre situation, is also really well done. Frances, a teacher Rose tries to have as a friend and ally, is particularly good.

Wynne is also excellent at showing how indoctrination affects the girls in different ways, and how it leads some to actually embrace their subordination and internalise the school's view of them.

I would highly recommend this book to anyone who loves a good mystery or thriller. It's not a 'whodunnit' or a crime novel, more of a sinister tale of a disturbing place and the people within it. It is gripping and will have you unable to put it down, all the while rooting for Rose. A brilliant book and I look forward to more novels from Phoebe Wynne.

I had heard mixed reviews about this one, and it had resulted in my delaying me I king this up until now. However I was pleasantly surprised!

Almost a dystopian story but within a real world setting. The shocks just kept on coming.

I loved the strong and vivid characters and I managed to remained shocked and intrigued pretty much the whole way through the story.

There were different layers of mystery and jeopardy throughout and it kept me turning the pages.

I loved the thread of classics knowledge throughout also.

I wasn’t in love with the ending, which is why I’ve gone with a 4/5.

I'm afraid I just couldn't settle to this book and it was a DNF for me. I found it way too slow to start and there was too much repetition. Sorry.

Thank you to NetGalley and to the publisher for allowing me to read this in exchange for an honest review.

This was an interesting book, but I think the comparison to Margaret Atwood will hinder rather than help this book. The pace was pretty slow and there were some weird narration issues that I found hard to connect to. The main character was a bit slow and a bit unlikeable too. Overall it was a decent read, but there are better books out there.

I requested Madam from NetGalley because I’m becoming more and more interested in books set in school settings – boarding schools, universities, regular schools… The dark academia vibe is appealing (probably because I’m becoming more entrenched in academics on a daily basis…). The blurb of Madam sounded very appealing: a school with a mystery at its heart. And for the first few chapters I found it hard to stop reading. What was the mystery? What was going to happen?

But a few chapters later and the cracks in the book’s façade were starting to show. Rose, the main character, is overdramatic, and doesn’t really grow or change throughout the story. Both her complaints about the lack of diversity at the school, and her comments on society’s attitudes towards the LGBTQ+ community, seem at odds with the time period Wynne sets Madam in: the 1990s. Wynne writes Rose as if she’s a time traveller from our time, looking at the 1990s as if they should be the 2020s.

It certainly wasn’t acceptable to be gay in the 90s, especially as a teacher. Wynne does mention Section 28, which was in effect in this time. However, Rose’s belief that the world outside accepts gay people is at odds with this. Wynne seems to be trying to emphasise how out of touch the school is. But she seems to lose touch with the time period she’s writing in.

Some reviewers have suggested Rose has a white saviour attitude within the book. I can see where they’re coming from. There are some Japanese girls at the school, who the school treats appallingly. Coldonbrae Hall is an upper-class British school, and so it is functioning as it was meant to function: as a training ground for upper-class girls (who are always going to be mostly white). The Japanese girls are one of the school’s attempts to ‘modernise’. The school segregates them away from the rest of the girls, putting them in separate living quarters, and at points treats like an ‘exotic novelty’.

Some of the descriptions Wynne uses to describe the Japanese girls are a little stereotypical. But I think she’s using the girls to show just how out of touch this school is and that treating them this way is wrong. This could however be seen as a racist depiction in its own right. Rose’s attitude within the book, both towards the Japanese girls, and towards the rest of the girls, is that she has to save them (because they’re so brainwashed they clearly can’t save themselves). Rose’s concerns about racial diversity feel forced, and performative. Reading that first mention of Rose’s worries about diversity made me wonder if early readers, Wynne’s agent or editor, had criticised her all-white cast. Perhaps she felt the need to deflect accusations of racism, or defend her neglect of people of colour.

Which leads me to question the lack of diversity amongst the school’s other students. I’m sure there would have been wealthy families in this time period who weren’t white. Wynne specifically mentions in Madam that the girls come from a mixture of ‘old money’ (aristocrats, royalty, etc), and ‘new money’ (families who have risen up the social ranks to become wealthy through jobs like barristers, surgeons, business owners, etc). It’s very likely there were families who had become wealthy, who weren’t white, and would have fitted Coldonbrae’s wealthy criteria. The only explanation for their exclusion would be their race. Why isn’t this mentioned? Wynne simply never discusses the subject, or the question, in the novel. The only non-white characters are those whom the school uses for ‘novelty’ and cultural value.

As it says in the blurb, Rose is a Classics teacher. Wynne herself has taught and studied Classics, and this does show in the narrative. There are multiple sections outside of the main narrative which explain stories of Greek/Roman classical women. It is these stories Rose is teaching her students in the book. Wynne seems to be using these examples of women who stood up to power in the ancient world as inspiration for the girls in the book to also stand up to power. This becomes especially true later in the narrative when Rose discovers that the girls actually have little choice as to what they are going to do with their lives.

This is the strand of the narrative that I find the most interesting. I think if Wynne had gone in a different direction with both characterisation and plot, this could have made the book really stand out as a commentary on the class system within Britain, as well as female choice within that system. Unfortunately, Rose simply becomes a screaming, overdramatic woman with little agency.

Classics as a subject is very much associated with the upper-class in Britain. It’s a subject that isn’t routinely taught at state schools but is taught to most upper-class privately educated children. It’s also a popular university subject amongst the wealthy. As such, the fact that Rose is teaching this subject, and yet gets so angry over other aspects of upper-class society, feels a little incongruous to me. Perhaps Wynne is attempting to add complexity to her character. Perhaps she does feel that the Classics should be taught to children from ordinary, working- and middle-class backgrounds. But she doesn’t include that conversation in Madam.

Rose feels horrified at the way the school separates the girls into different ‘pathways’ seemingly based on their academic (it’s never really specified) abilities, yet she never acknowledges that this is actually how society functions. We live in a stratified society that bases worth on the job you have, how much you earn, and where you live.

Perhaps this is what Wynne was trying to represent in her depiction of Coldonbrae Hall. Yet it felt more like Rose was championing her type of ‘freedom’ over the class structure the girls are trapped in. At one point, one of the girl’s challenges Rose over freedom. She states that Rose is as trapped by her financial constraints as the girls are by their families’ traditions regarding marriage and the female role in life. Rose dismisses this, which I think is a shame. This discussion of freedom could have added a lot of depth to the story.

Structurally, Madam does struggle, I think. The story opens with a prologue, showing the ending of the book from a more omniscient point of view. We read a letter addressed to the teacher the school sacked, whose job Rose has now taken. The story then follows Rose in a third person point of view. At the end of the book we do get glimpses of that omniscient point of view again, as the ending joins up with the prologue. By the time I got to the end of the book, I had forgotten what I’d read during the prologue. So I’m not sure what affect Wynne was trying to achieve by opening the book that way. I really don’t think the prologue was needed.

I also didn’t like the ending of the book. Without giving spoilers, it was unsatisfying. Wynne gives us a deus ex machina ending. Rose was saved not through her own actions, but through an intervention of fate (sort of). Nothing really felt resolved at the end. It very much felt like Wynne had written herself into a corner and came up with something random to save herself and Rose.

Wynne writes well from a technical standpoint, and I did feel intrigued for most of the novel. The questions around the secrets the school is hiding from Rose kept me reading, despite my frustrations with Rose as a character. I think Madam is a really good idea that Wynne could have executed a lot better. It seems to lack a central message and feels quite messy as a story. Perhaps Wynne will get better as she keeps writing, as Madam is her debut novel. Overall, a bit of a disappointing read, but I would recommend if you can take it for what it is.

The hype let this down sadly. Comparing to Atwood for sales will inevitable result in disappointment.

I couldn't get into the writing style, nor could I connect with any characters. The concept and the weirdness are very interesting, but some parts felt like the story wandered and repeated but not sure why!

well written, good plot, i enjoyed it would read again i really like the author

A slow read, filled with repetition.
I had high hopes for it but sadly it just wasn't for me....

Really loved this gothic dark academia book - I really felt the eeriness that would surround an isolated and slightly mysterious community, and I was hooked throughout, despite it being on the slower side of thrillers.

Overall, this was an alright read for me, but nothing that set my world alight. It was a bit unbelievable at times and the main character (Rose) was often insufferable, but there were parts that really gripped me. A major issue for me (that I've seen others mention too) is that the book was set in the 1990s but it seemed more plausible to be set in the 1890s.

An easy read, but I wouldn't add it to the top of your TBR pile.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC in return for an honest review.

This had real Gothic potential, almost a dystopian novel. But the heroine is too naive and this always gets me! Despite this, I read to the end and enjoyed it. A great idea and plot.

I couldn't finish this book. I wanted to like it, I really did. The Secret History and Rebecca are two of my fabourite books.

The book has no sense of time or place for me. It's set in the 1990s, but could have been any time, and the 90's wasn't remotely relevant to anything. I found all the characters annoying and the setting felt contrived and I couldn't get past a few chapters unfortunately.

I found this intriguing, if rather slow moving. I didn’t really take to the main character at first, finding her rather insipid and lacking in drive to defend herself, though there were similarities with the heroine of Daphne du Maurier’s “Rebecca”, which I found interesting, in that she seemed to have little to no control over what was happening to her, or understanding of what was going on, until the latter stages of the book. It was a well-plotted mystery, but due to my reservations about the character of “Madam”, I could not award it five stars.

I’m afraid Mirrorland couldn’t hold my interest and I haven’t finished it. I persevered as the story looked promising according to the description. Perhaps, it was just a poor choice for me. My thanks to Netgalley for the opportunity to read this book.

This is a Gothic style novel, set in and isolated school for girls in Scotland. It’s an elite school with an exclusive reputation. Rose is surprised by the invitation to join the staff. But once she’s there she starts to question the old traditions, and the rest of the staff are obviously keeping secrets.

This is set in the 1990’s, but I will say that the setting, the Gothic tone and the traditions of the school very much make it seem older than that.

I really enjoyed the way Rose connected with some of her students, and seeing those lessons with Greek mythology woven through worked really well for me. There were however moments I was really frustrated with some of Rose’s actions and decisions. They really had me wanting to scream at her!

I will say you definitely have to suspend disbelief at some parts of the plot. There are some parts of it which feels incredibly unlikely. But the plot overall kept me intruged and gripped throughout. The ending was a little rushed, but overall I really liked it and felt it was a pretty good pay off.

Trigger Warnings: Adult/Minor relationship, Child Abuse, Sexual Assault, Suicide, Abortion, Sexism

Classics teacher Rose is recruited to teach at a prestigious but remote private girls' boarding school Caldonbrae Hall, where girls from the best families are taught to be the perfect wives for rich, powerful men.

The more Rose tries to find out what happened to her predecessor the more she's frustrated, and she gradually realises that there are dark secrets at the heart of Caldonbrae.

Unfortunately Rose's character didn't ring true. She's hopelessly naive and manages to ignore hints and pointers that scream out at her. And the school setting wasn't convincing, either; it didn't seem very Scottish to me.

It's all too slow and yet melodramatic at the same time. I also found the insertion of bits of Greek myth into the story too obvious and they pulled me out of the narrative.

Unfortunately it's a no from me.

Unfortunately this book is just not for me! I've tried to read it a couple of times now, but just can't get into it!

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Quercus for the e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Sadly this one will be a DNF for me. I rarely DNF a book, but I simply couldn't get into this one. I'm so sad as Historical Fiction is my go-to genre and I thought I would love this, but I found it unspectacular, and nothing was drawing me back to it each time I put it down. It quickly became a slog, so it's time to put it on hold. Maybe one day, when I'm in the perfect mood for it, I'll pick up a copy and give it a go physically - that sometimes makes for a different experience, but for now a DNF and a 2 stars for what I've read so far.