The title of this book should clue you in to what the book is about. An ingenue person is a naive girl or young woman. This book was definitely disturbing.
Family dynamics are complicated and dark.
A story built on layer upon layer of secrets, a mother's sacrifice, past trauma, rape.
A prodigy robbed of the youth she should have had by those that called it love.

Thank you NetGalley and St Martin's Press for the opportunity to read this book.

I'm not a big fan of going back and forth between time periods which this book does. I understand why it was done that way but it made the story too disjointed for me. The story itself was interesting in that it's set in the city where I'm from so I knew exactly where and what was being referred to. The ending was a bit disappointing as well and kind of leave you hanging.

After the surprising death of her flighty mother, Saskia returns to her family’s heritage home only to find the rug pulled out from under her feet when the inheritance she expects to receive is given to an ex-boyfriend instead.

When Saskia walked away from a promising career as a pianist, her famous painter mother made no effort to hide her disappointment, driving her daughter out of her home. Hurt, Saskia stayed away, finding odd jobs, and dreaming of the day she could return to her beloved Elf House.

The house is described in such a manner that it is an entity in and of itself.

Nobody knows where the elves came from. In lieu of gargoyles, that pair of fairy-tale creatures has framed the doorway of the Harper mansion for as long as anyone can remember. Kneeling mischievously, their pointed ears sticking out from their stocking caps, they lie in wait. Watching the births and the deaths, the parties and the funerals, the beginnings and the endings. But who, every Harper for generations has asked, put them there?
Rachel Kapelke-Dale. The Ingenue (Kindle Locations 17-20). Kindle Edition.

Told in two time periods-Saskia’s youth, and present day, after the death of her mother-the story rolls out tense family dynamics, societal pressures, exceptional talent and the expectations that go with it, along with destructive relationships make this a serious, thought-provoking read.

A gorgeously written piece.
Many thanks to St. Martin’s Press and to NetGalley for providing me with a galley in exchange for my honest opinion.

Great original story. This book was a whole lot to take in. There is so much happening. While the disjointed time as a storytelling technique is appropriate for this book, it is hard to follow. I kept wanting to flip to the end to see how it turned out. It took all my will power to get to chapter 14 before I gave in. After reading the end I still had to go back to where I stopped and read it all the way through. This is a mash up of a legal thriller, gothic horror, and twisted coming of age novel.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the e-arc. This is not usually my genre but I was intrigued by the cover and synopsis and am so glad I grabbed it. I really really enjoyed this. It kept me on my toes and intrigued me. Even days later I am still thinking about it.
As a lawyer, I was pleasantly surprised by how grounded in reality the probate challenge stuff was (except of course Mr conflict of interest but putting that aside). The exaggeratedly short timeline worked well for dramatic effect and kept me on my toes.
I started this one night and finished it the next morning. I found the beginning a bit slow but once I was into it I was invested and didn't want to stop reading.
This is a deep character-driven story and there are some tough spots.
Trigger warnings: Grooming, statutory rape, death

I was hoping for a win with this one, but unfortunately it wasn't quite the right fit for me. Apparently this book is a "modern gothic" which is probably why it didn't work for me. I also had a hard time connecting with the characters. If you're looking for a dark, contemporary tale that is slightly creepy and disturbing this might be the book for you. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for giving me the chance to read and review this book.

Rachel Kapelke-Dale’s latest explores complex relationships and how secrets can come unravelling, leading to life changing decisions.

The novel jumps from Saskia’s childhood and teenage years, as a young piano prodigy, and present day, as she returns to her childhood home, Elf House, after the unexpected death of her mother. As she comes face to face with her past, she is forced to explore her complicated relationship with her mother, as well as with her past lover, Patrick. As the story unfolds, we come to understand how Saskia walked away from her musical path and why her mother came to leave Elf House to Patrick in her will. The suspense builds as Saskia makes it her mission to uncover and expose secrets, including her own, in a fight to keep her childhood home.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for the ARC.

Saskia is shocked when her mother suddenly passes away, and she needs to return home. She is shocked and hurt by the decisions her mom had made without ever telling Saskia.

However, the longer she’s home, the more she realizes that things weren’t always the way they seemed - not just with her mom, but her old friends and boyfriend, too.

What a wild ending to this one!

Thank you to @netgalley for providing a copy in exchange for an honest review.

#netgalley #netgallyreviewer #netgalleyreader #netgalleyarc #fiction #booklover #bookreviews #whatimreading #whatiread #bookish #bookstagram #bookworm #booknerd #bookaddict #bibliophile #bookgram #bookstagrammer #instabooks #bookreviewer #takealookitsinabook #theingenue #rachelkapelkedale

I have mixed feelings about this book because it covers upsetting topics that are at best difficult to read and a worst triggering. I couldn’t help but think about My Dark Vanessa when reading it. It makes me angry the way adult men can treat young girls and sad for the girls that end up in that situation.

The book is well written and very intelligent with big themes. I especially liked the snippets of Evie’s feminist fairytales, I think they were an excellent way to reinforce the desire to get Saskia on a better path. I don’t want to get into too many details, but the book also does a good job of trying to dismiss the situation, making claims that it’s “art” which makes think of how turned around when get when we validate artists’ work and neglect the morality of said work. The character of Shelia embodies that in her small appearance.

It’s a book that took me a bit to get into and then I was immersed in the mystery of why Evie did what she did but I’d say the last bit slowed down for me again and I waded through how the story could conclude. It’s a hard story to wrap up in the end.

📖 The details:
The Ingenue by Rachel Kapelke-Dale

⏱ Quick summary:
Saskia is a former piano prodigy who is returning to her childhood home, The Elf House, after her mother dies. She finds out that her mother left the beloved house to someone from Saskia's past, that she had a complicated relationship with. As she fights to keep the house in the family, she must examine her past relationships and uncover some dark secrets.

💁‍♀️ My take:
3⭐️
This one really pulled me in... at first. I thought it was an interesting and unique story about a child prodigy, her fall from grace, and coming home. But the development of some characters and plot points fell short. I wanted there to be more emotion and exploration of Saskia's relationships - with her mother, father, Patrick (I especially thought this one could have gone deeper). There was so much emphasis on the financial and legal parts of the house that it took away from the story. Overall, I thought it was well-written, but a bit too much going on at once to really LOVE any certain part of it. Recommend if you're looking for a quick but dark read.

➰ Favorite quotes:
"Because what happens to a princess who renounced her crown to have adventures, once those adventures end? She's just some girl, that's all. Out in the world alone."

Thank you to St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review!

The Ingenue by Rachel Kapelke-Dale is an explosive novel of secrets and horrors. The story revolves around Saskia, a former child piano prodigy who is now an adult. She returns to her family estate, The Elf House, a gothic mansion surrounded by gargoyles. But instead of inheriting the house, it turns out that her mother has left the house to someone outside of the family. Saskia is shocked, especially when it turns out she has a history with that man. Can she find out why her mother would do such a thing?

Here is a creepy excerpt from Chapter 1:

"It was not unusual for her mother to disappear for extended periods. In general, Saskia’s parents treated her less like a kid and more like a miniature adult. At parties, with other parents, her mother always said that the best thing to do with children was to let them come up, not to make them grow up. Like Saskia was a blade of grass or a dandelion.
So Saskia was used to being alone in the big house. And though she didn’t mind the echoing solitude, Lexi had bribed her with the twin temptations of a trip down to Downer followed by a sleepover. She loved their sleepovers, which were filled with ghost stories they’d cribbed from the bone-curdling Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark series."

Overall, The Ingenue is a beautifully-written contemporary fiction novel that touches on many current social issues. It will appeal to fans of Celeste Ng or My Dark Vanessa. One highlight of this book is the creepy locale. I loved reading about the Elf House. The short feminist fairy tale excerpts at the beginning of each chapter were also a delight to read. There was a lot that I enjoyed in this book even though it wasn't what I was expecting.

After reading the author's previous book, The Ballerinas, I thought that this book would a thriller in that vein. Although this book is very, very dark, it's not actually a thriller. I would recommend reading the trigger warnings for this book. I took off 1 star, because the story was just too sad for my taste. If you're intrigued by the excerpt above, or if you're a fan of contemporary fiction in general, I recommend that you check out this book when it comes out in December!

This book was a thriller that kept you constantly engaged and made you think about the character and story line. Highly recommend.

I wish to thank NetGalley and St Martin’s Press for allowing me to read an advanced copy of this book. I have voluntarily read and reviewed it. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

I am a fan of Rachel Kapelke-Dale and loved her book the Ballerinas. This novel is set in the current modern day time frame and centers on the life of a young girl pianist. It is slow in the beginning and I think that is a good thing. It allows the reader a chance to build a relationship with Saskia and her mother as she begins her journey into the world of music. The shift comes when she gets involved with a much older man who takes advantage of the young 14 year old girl. Saskia hides the relationship from everyone and later after he ends the relationship she flounders. She even gives up her piano future. The story begins when she return homes when in her 30’s after her mother’s death. She finds herself really examining the relationships she had with her parents and learns that her mother has left the childhood estate to Saskia’s former lover and not to her own family as she expected. The dark side of these relationships bring to mind many of the “me too” stories in the news every day and the impact such things have of the lives of young girls. Rachel is a masterful writer and I highly recommend this story unless relationships of this kind are a trigger for you. The modernized fairy tale stories Saskia’s author mother writes are delightful. Each chapter heading retells one of the old fairy tales with a new feminist twist. When her mother dies with an unfinished manuscript Saskia decides to finish the last story. It is fun to see how her mind weaves into her mother’s thinking.

I do recommend this book and look forward to the author’s next story. The author is a master storyteller and wordsmith and once she has your attention she holds in to the very end.

Like The Ballerinas (2021) Kapelke-Dale’s latest delves into the life of an artist, although unlike her prior novel The Ingenue focuses on a single individual—and one who has stepped aside from her performing past.

Saskia Kreis, a piano prodigy from an early age, develops her gift during a childhood spend in a privileged suburb of Milwaukee. The daughter of an imaginative feminist author-artist and a professional cellist, she grows up in in the Elf House, a brewery baron’s ornately fantastic but decrepit mansion. Saskia spends a mostly solitary and singular girlhood traveling the world, amazing audiences with her precocious and highly developed talent on the keyboard. But as she enters her teens, her mother’s much older university colleague, a photographer, takes her under his wing—and into his bed. Their secret affair has a profound impact on Saskia’s later life, resulting in the abandonment of music career, dead-end jobs, dodgy life choices, and damage to her hands in the amateur boxing ring.

Her mother’s sudden death draws her reluctantly but dutifully back to Elf House, in the expectation that she and her father will inherit it. Conflict over whether to keep or sell the dilapidated money pit and surrounding estate become moot when they discover that Evie Harper Kreis has left it to Patrick Kintner—Saskia’s seducer, whose surprise inheritance and simultaneous photographic exhibition sparks the shocking denouement.

Saskia’s childhood, her difficult coming of age, and the destructive consequences of a disastrous affair are revealed in flashbacks. Through the course of the story, her weaknesses and resentments are transformed into strengths. Kapelke-Dale’s revelation of the artistic temperament and creative passion is especially well done, and her conflicted, motivated, and multi-dimensional characters are effectively drawn. (St. Martin’s, 320 pp., hardcover/ebook/audio, December 2022)

I chose to read this book because I am currently taking piano lessons as a beginner. So I wanted to read a story about a piano ingenue. This story did not disappoint in that respect. Overall it was a book that holds your interest to the very end. There is one, no two, major plot twists that were so shocking they were almost unbelieveable and I had to stop for a minute and review in my mind where the main character was and how she got there. Not sure it would have been my reaction to the situation she was in but it did help me understand more why she reacted the way she did. I would definitely recommend this book.

The Ingenue was a wild ride for me: filled with unexpected twists, trauma, and emotion that surprised me till the very end. I really liked it, but beware that it is not easy reading (trigger warning: statutory rape).

Saskia is a prodigy: at three, she begins playing the piano and by her teens she is touring the world as a concert pianist. Saskia doesn’t fit in at school; her focus has never been on clothes or boys. Saskia is single-mindedly beamed in on honing her piano playing and becoming the greatest pianist the world has seen.

It’s present-day and Saskia’s mother, Evelyn, has passed away from a rare genetic disorder. Saskia returns home to Wisconsin for the services and to claim her expected inheritance: the enormous and special Harper family historic home, known as the Elf House. Except, her mother has left the Elf House to Patrick, a photographer at the nearby university, to use for a pre-college arts program. Saskia and her father are shocked by the bequest and determined to uncover Evelyn’s motivation for this change to her will. It’s worth noting that Saskia is floundering as an adult. She doesn’t play piano anymore. She can’t hold down a steady job. She has become a boxer, destroying the hands she used to treat as prized possessions. While Saskia has never wanted to return to Wisconsin, she has always seen the Elf House as her birthright. With it in the balance, Saskia’s life seems even more precarious.

Saskia’s search for answers about her mother’s decision becomes her own search for answers about her youth, romantic relationships, and life path. It is full of revelations, surprising to both Saskia and the reader. As I said at the beginning of this review, I was being surprised up until the very last page.

My favorite thing about The Ingenue was tangential to the plot. Saskia’s mother was renowned for writing fairy tales for feminists, retelling of famous fairy tales where the princesses act as fierce heroines in charge of their own destinies. Each chapter begins with an excerpt from one of the fairy tales and they were SO GOOD. I was impressed by how a few short lines can turn an age-old fairy tale on its head. I would love to read the full story of each (maybe this exists somewhere? If not, the author should write it!).

This was my second Rachel Kapelke-Dale novel, and I liked it as much as, if not more, than the first. I will definitely read more of her! Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I read this expecting it to be like her last book, which was more of a thriller set in the ballet world. This book has decidedly less thrills, although plenty of psychological. Interesting exploration of inner workings of creatives. I enjoyed spending time in Saskia’s head, if not her house

(Also, I know this is petty NYC coastal elite of me but NGL the elf house sounds weird. It was a distraction. Sorry to the Midwest. That’s what took it from a 5 to 4 star book.)

The Ingenue is a sinister, suspenseful novel of a prodigy robbed of her youth by her parents’ expectations and an older man’s cruel intentions. Author Rachel Kapelke-Dale captures the tragedy of this young woman’s life as she reveals her spiraling downfall.

Told through the eyes of Saskia Kreis, now in her thirties, she comes home to the unexpected death of her mother, a powerful influence and mentor in her life. Once a promising pianist, Saskia returns to Milwaukee after losing her job, reputation, and lover through a botched affair. She discovers her mother’s illness was kept from her. Also, her inheritance, Elf House, is being willed to a repellent man from her past.

I liked Kapelke-Dale’s first novel, The Ballerinas, so I was eager to read her second one. However, I felt The Ingenue’s ending was shocking but too trite and not quite believable. Although I still enjoyed the novel’s portrayal of Saskia’s present conflicts and flashbacks to her childhood dreams and emotions. The writing captured the dynamics of the mother-daughter relationship, especially excerpts from Saskia’s mother’s books. I also thought the history of the Harper family and prologue was a brilliant introduction, creating a mystifying entry into the story. Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for allowing me to read and review it. #NetGalley #Women’sFiction, #pyschologicalthriller

This was unexpected for me. It started off a little slow, but I kept on because the premise interested me. I wouldn't have necessarily picked a "#me too" book, but I was sent this ARC so I figured I would give it a chance.

I really did end up liking the main character and felt her feelings being tugged in multiple directions. She was a piano prodigy, but still seemed like a regular person that I could relate to.

The ending threw me! I was not expecting it.

Thanks to St. Martin's Press for this copy.