I could not get into this book, sorry. Trying to clean up my netgalley. I have previously shared my loved on my instagram page and didn't realize that I was forgetting to leave reviews on netgalley itself, My apologies.

I am always such a sucker for stories set at boarding schools. And this cover! LOVE it!

But that is where the positives in this review stop. I am dnf’ing this one at about 60%. And even getting to that point was a struggle.

The Greek mythology thrown in seemed to have no relevance to the story. The story itself was dead on the vine. It didn’t move. It didn’t progress. It didn’t have me wanting more. I rarely dnf but I just couldn’t keep going with this one.

Thank you to Netgalley, Macmillan Audio, and the author for the complimentary ALC in exchange for an honest review.

The cover of this book conveys its contents quite well: it's creepy, mysterious and dark. It's also slow moving, like the fog. It makes for great suspense, you never know when the cliff is coming, but it won't be for reader looking for a plot that moves along. The narration fits the book perfectly, quiet menace is the vibe it gives.

I personally liked the ebook a lot more than the audiobook, I thought it was a fun thriller but was expecting more out of it!

For most of us, expensive boarding schools aren’t the reality; all we know of them we’ve learned from books and movies. And the audio edition of author Phoebe Wynne’s chilling gothic novel, Madam, introduces one prestigious all-girls school with a storied past and a whole lot of secrets...

Full review published on NightsAndWeekends.com and aired on Shelf Discovery

Was unable to listen to this audiobook. Damaged my phone and had to get a new one. When I opened my netgalley app, I was unable to listen.

Things couldn't be going better for Rose Christie. Only 26, she has just been hired to head up the classics department at the prestigious Caldonbrae Hall school for young women. In fact, she is the only new hire for many years and in her interview was told the school looked forward to her innovative views.
The school is supportive. Rose is given an apartment and even her mother's care, who is confined to a nursing facility, is taken care of. All she has to do is plan and deliver her lectures. She finds the girls strangely unprepared and they talk quite a lot about her predecessor who left quickly with no word on her current whereabouts. The students seem to think that the stories of the Greek and Roman women Rose lectures about, who are strong and can serve as role models, are irrelevant.

Then things slowly start to turn. Rose is aware of whispers among the staff when she enters a room. The office staff are, by turns, surly or impudent. Rose is given tasks that don't seem to match her job description. There are secrets everywhere. Girls disappear without warning or notice. Rose starts to get anonymous letters telling her she doesn't belong there but it is soon apparent, she can't leave unless the school wants her to. There are big secrets being kept and when Rose learns them, she knows she must do her best to change things.

This is a debut novel and has garnered a lot of buzz with accolades such as 'One of the 75 Debuts To Discover In 2021' by Goodreads and 'Best Debuts Of 2021' by Parade. It has a gothic feel and champions women's rights and challenges the male patriarchy. Nathalie Buscombe is the narrator for those listening to the novel and she does a perfect job of portraying a naive woman who comes to realize she has made a glaring career mistake and now must fight for her life. This book is recommended for mystery readers.

I tried and tried to like Madam, but I didn't.
It should have been right up my alley. Boarding school with dark secrets, and it's set in the 90's!
I mean, that's literally all I wanted to read back in the 90's when I was in school myself! I should have loved it. But I didn't.
I made it to 30% and then I put it down for good. None of it caught my attention. There were SO many names, so many girls to keep track of. None of them fleshed out enough to be memorable. And I really I didn't enjoy being inside Rose's head. It was a very dull place to be...

This book was just not for me. I usually like something different and I had every intention of enjoying this one, really a gothic thriller sounded great, but this one left me scratching my head and feeling bewildered. Since I never give less than a 3 star to a review of an ARC, that is what I gave this one. Rose was hired to this boarding school and the first new teacher in over 20 years but she is disrespected from the beginning. There is something going on behind the scenes and when she finds out she cannot fathom how it has continued so long. That is all I'm going to say. There were so many triggers in this one that left me shuddering. I did like the ending though.

OMG what did I just listen to!?! I loved it so much. Such a twisted novel. I am speechless I told my husband he has to listen to this book that he will love it.

Caldonbrae Hall is an elite Scottish Boarding school for girls. It promises to make the girls lucky enough to attend ready for society. 26 year old Rose is the first new hire in over a decade and is brought in to head up the Classics department. She finds that the school isn't all it appears to be on the surface. Some of their ways and traditions go against Rose's feminist beliefs. She struggles to reconcile her own personal ethics and standards with what the school dictates. Rose also discovers that her predecessor left under suspicious circumstances.

OK, I was hoping to love this one but it wasn't quite for me. The setting was totally dark and gothic, being an old castle on the cliffs of Scotland. Rose was admirable for her firm beliefs in doing what is right for the girls. However, I feel as if the first 50-60% of the book was lot of Rose in the classroom or Rose talking about gods and goddesses. There wasn't that building of creeping WTF that I like in my gothic tales. Once we get past all that, the creepiness does start up. It was just a little too late for me. I like the concept but the execution didn't exactly work for me.

What to listen to while reading...
A Forest by The Cure
She Sells Sanctuary by The Cult
Under the Milky Way by The Church
Blasphemous Rumors by Depeche Mode
Happy House by Siouxsie and the Banshees
Lose It by Austra

I really enjoyed listening to the audiobook of Madam. It's a dark academia and boarding school drama/mystery which is a subgenre that I really like!
The setting helps the gothic feeling surrounding the mysterious goings-on with the girls and staff.
The author ties in Greek mythology, which is also a personal favorite!
I recommend this to listen or read!

I received the audio of Madam in exchange for an honest review.
Set in Scotland, Caldonbrae Hall is an exclusive boarding school for upper class girls. Rose Christie feels both honored and nervous of teaching the classics there. Rose is extremely naive and things aren’t going to well with the student, faculty and administration.
Good review—the narrator is superb. Even with increasing the speed, it was easy to understand the narrator.
Bad review—the book. I know it has a take on gothic fiction but gothic elements just don’t finish in modern day. The students were brats, faculty nonspportive and administration horrible.
I finished this audio to fulfill my commitment to NetGalley, but it was painful for me.

Let me start by saying that this book just wasn't for me. I listened to Madam via audiobook and the narration was simply excellent, but the plot just didn't pull me in. This (audio)book will be excellent to fans of dark mysteries, dark academia and generally novels with a mysterious, gloomy English vibe. I personally found that the first two thirds of the novel were decidedly more character- than plot-driven. Go for it if it's your cup of (English breakfast) tea!

This modern gothic had a great creepy mystery at its core but I felt it dragged a bit and it just didn't grab me the way I had hoped. Rose Christie arrives as a young Classics teacher at Caldonbrae Hall, a 150 year old Scottish girls' boarding school. From the beginning she receives a less than warm welcome from the teachers and students and she quickly detects that all is not as it appears in these hallowed halls. Set in the 1990s, this school is very much stuck in its aristocratic traditions and ideologies, where girls are treated as property for creating new alliances. Parts of this were stronger than others but I found it could have used some editing in the middle. Just an okay read for me. The narrator did a really good job with the Scottish accents and I enjoyed that part a lot.

I loved Madam by @phoebewynnewrites ! It’s an atmospheric, gothic tale set in a boarding school for girls. But this is no normal school. An entire institution against feminism, and a group of women that may just survive in tact. A group of women who start to think for themselves, and a teacher who might lose her mind fighting an institution where it’s almost impossible to win. But maybe she can… for these girls, maybe she can make it right. I loved the girls, their teacher, and the amazing setting! You’ll stay up reading about what happens next, and you’ll hate the bastards in charge.

This book left me wanting to go see the castle that inspired the setting, and isn't that always the best? When a book leaves you wanting to really travel to the setting or the inspiration for the setting, it's because it was so real, and vibrant that you just must see it for yourself. If you like gothic fiction, and I REALLY do, you’ll love this!

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for my free audio version. It really added a lot to the story. The narrator was fantastic!

it's pretty good, maybe my expectations were correctly leveled, I wasn't disappointed by any means, it was properly feminist and intriguing, it's just the prose that wasn't 100% there, which can be expected from a debut writer. there's potential here. narrator was great though!

Thank you to NetGalley and MacMillan audio for the Early Listen. For me this audiobook was hard to follow with all the characters. The narrator didn't give each character their own voice so that's what made it hard to follow. For me anyway. Otherwise the story is good keeps you guessing and wanting to finish the book.

Madam was a tough one for me. I kind of feel like the author knew what she wanted it to be but went so overboard with some elements that it just didn't work, at least not for me. The blurb mentions a modern gothic tale, and it is gothic. So much so that it doesn't feel modern. With the exception of a few references, this story feels like it's set about a century earlier than it actually is. Most of the characters aren't at all likable, including Rose. She's rather abrasive, and maybe that's intentional, but it was just one more thing that didn't work for me. I started this one with the ebook format, but the beginning was really slow, and I was having trouble getting into the story. The blurb had piqued my interest enough, so I switched to the audiobook in hopes of a better outcome. I did make it all the way through, but even the audio version felt slow, and those things that didn't work while reading didn't fare any better while listening. The story is quite dark and parts of it are thoroughly disturbing, but that wasn't the reason for my disappointment. I was prepared for darkness, but I also expected more suspense and tension. I didn't find that here, and I think that was due to the slow pacing. I will say that the narrator, Nathalie Buscombe, has a pleasant voice, but it's almost a bit too pleasant for Rose in my opinion. I would listen to her on something else though. As for the story, I feel like this debut suffered from a case of trying too hard and ended up overshooting on things that could've been important to the reading experience.

Madam is about a young teacher, Rose, who takes a position teaching Classics at an elusive yet elite girls boarding school in Scotland. As Rose starts her employment, she begins noticing that things are “off”. For instance, all female teachers are referred to as Madam at the school rather than using names. She also has a difficult time getting her students to listen or care about her course, despite the risqué material she presents each class. She is repeatedly told by her students that there is no point in learning. Hmmm...As I started this book, I was sucked in, curious, wanting to know more...

As the plot progressed, it became evident that Greek mythology was weaved into the narrative as symbolism. This classic literature, taught by Rose to her students, typically involved scorned and abused women who used violence and destruction to regain their sense of empowerment. I thought it was successful as a lead up for what was to come, but also distracted from the story at hand. It felt disconnected. The plot was unexpectedly dark, and at times, repulsive, as it delved into heavy themes. But again, these themes felt disjointed and out of place, detracting from the story rather than adding to it.
I also thought the pacing was way off. Much too slow and drawn out for my likes. The characters could have used way more colour and depth. They reminded me of cut out paper dolls, all the same. I kept confusing who was who.

Although this book didn’t work for me, there are other higher reviews that I would encourage readers to check out. The audiobook narrator did a good job portraying a dark and foreboding atmosphere, which I think was the author’s intent.

Thank you to MacMillan Audio and Netgalley for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.