An intense read about a mother-daughter relationship. Sasia is a child prodigy we follow as we go back and forth from her childhood to where she is currently. With the unexpected death of her mother, we take a journey that is involved with issues, including the current issue of inheritance...an old family estate that has been in the family from generation to generation. But the surprise question is who will inherit this home now, bringing to the forefront the secrets that have been hidden. Dramatic in its telling, the book was well written, one that I would highly recommend. My thanks to NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I love time jumps when done appropriately and Rachel pulls it off with amazing success. It’s pleasing to see how she painted the relationship dynamics from character to character. Rachel navigates the reader through the premise with intricate details woven in at the right time. This should be on everyone’s TBR or at least in your beach bag collection. High praises for her storytelling.

I really enjoyed the fairytales for feminists and the overall story in THE INGENUE, along with the themes of an aging prodigy and familial relationships. Saskia is a complicated character and not everyone will like her, which is okay. The setting, especially the Elf House, is quite atmospheric, almost gothic, and the author does a terrific job at setting the scene. The plot feels well-constructed and I did not get confused by the back and forth in time. Recommended for fans of dark family sagas.

Overall, I enjoyed the book but the plot was slow and didn’t gain momentum so it took a long time to read. I finished it and felt a little letdown of how it gradually wrapped up, even though I did appreciate the closing. The book summary from Evie’s book at the start of each chapter followed by ~2000, then 2020 was consistent so I was able to easily make the mental jump around. The book built upon itself and the story was pretty good. Not sure I could compare it to anything else I’ve read lately.

A retired, prodigy piano player, Saskia, in her mid 30s returns to Wisconsin when her mother unexpectedly dies to help her father settle the estate. What neither of them expect is that her mother has left their family mansion and it’s land, that has been handed down to a member of the family for generations, to a friend. It doesn’t make sense but also it does. Saskia is determined to get to the bottom of it…at any cost.
Initial reactions:

Patrick, the family friend who was gifted the house in the will, can go take a long walk off a short cliff. I really like Saskia. I think she’s relatable even if you never went through any of the things she went through. I have to admit I had no idea where this story was going. How was this going to end? A good note? A bad note? It’s kind of a messed up story so can it even end of a good note. I think it kind of did in a messed up way. It was well paced. Not to slow, not to fast. Just at the right pace to keep me interested.

I don’t read many books like this but I was intrigued by the dynamic between Saskia and her mother. They hid so much from one another. What could they have been if they had been more open? Evie clearly loved Saskia in her own way.

The opening talked a lot about how import the elves on the house were and then it was never important ever again in the book except to reference the house by name. “Elf house.” Who put the damn elves on the house?!?!

The book addresses grooming, sexual assault of a minor, pedophiles, drug use/drugging of a minor. There are times when other victims are addressed and their refusal or inability to address what happened is talked about. That could be problematic for some people. It wasn’t for me but I would like to mention it for others.

The Ingenue follows Saskia Kreis as she returns to her hometown after the death of her mother. Saskia has to grieve and at the same time try to deal with traumatic experiences that she had while growing up in this town. The chapters alternate between present day and the time of Saskia’s childhood. For me, this book was just ok. I enjoyed the story mostly until one unbelievable event occurred, at which point it was a struggle to finish the novel. Saskia is a self-centered character that I found unlikable which is another reason that I didn’t enjoy the novel much. It’s hard to be invested in the emotional salvation of the protagonist when you find them unsympathetic.

Whoa! What a ride. It was very fast-paced. The writing style kept me hooked and I didn't find myself losing any interest. I enjoyed getting to know each of the characters and how real the story felt. The author did a great job painting the setting, so it was easy for me to visualize the scene played out before me. I recommend giving this one a chance!

I was taken by the books claim to be the new Dark Vanessa and while there are similarities between the 2, the road Ingenue goes down is far more interwoven as part of Saskia’s life than Vanessa’s was. The topic of teenage girl/older man is explored in a far more gritty detail, so if that’s a trigger for you, keep away. I found myself trying hard to relate to Saskia and once I was past the 30% part I got there, and was so invested I barely let go until I was done. Prose is thick, begging you to slow down and take a moment - and you’ll be best served to do just that.

What is the life of a child prodigy like?
This is the story of a near middle aged woman who is trying to figure out who she is after a childhood as a prodigy, the story of the love parents have for their child, the story of things that have been happening for way too long and shouldn’t. Not ever again.

I was on board for this one right up until the final quarter. That ending??

I was invested in this story, I really wanted to know how Saskia was going to move on, I wanted to see what would happen with secondary characters, but then, out of the blue, it’s over. Just like that. I found it so underwhelming and unsatisfying with far too many loose ends. I understand that like in life, an ending won’t always be clear but in a story like this one, a more neatly tied up end is something I find necessary.

Ultimately, the ending ruined this one for me.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the ARC of this book.

Unfortunately, the back and forth and repetitiveness wasn’t for me. It was very hard to get through and just didn’t grab my attention. The premise was intriguing but the execution was lacking.

This is dark book with some tough themes which would make a great book club pick. Saskia is a grown-up piano prodigy who expects to inherit her long-held family estate in Milwaukee and is surprised to find that her mother has left the estate to a university to be used by art students. The house will be in the hands of a man from Saskia's past that she has a complicated history with. The book explores some dark, complicated issues which evoke strong feelings. Equally, each chapter begins with a snippet from one of Saskia's mother's feminist fairy tale retellings, and some of these are quite interesting and thought-provoking as well.

First off I would like to thank NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for providing me with this ARC. The description comparing this story to My Dark Vanessa and The Queen’s Gambit was precise. This book was fierce. I read the blurb and thought I knew what to expect but I was obviously wrong. Piano prodigy Saskia Kreis returns home to Milwaukee in 2020 when her mother dies. She assumes that she will inherit the family estate, but when the will hands down the house to someone else, Saskia has to examine her past while keeping secrets buried. This book was incredibly well-written and she was able to interweave the past and present with tremendous style. It has the perfect mix of tension and drama and will captivate you from the beginning. This book will definitely be up for a book club discussion. You’ll just have to see for yourself!

I'd like to thank the publisher and NetGalley for allowing me a chance at trying to read this book.

I honestly did not like what I read of this book. It was like the author was attempting to speak high brow to me. As much as the book is about trying to take down the mentor / abuser, he is in it very little and there isn't much for me to feel outraged and upset as I should be.

I did not read the other author's work so I came into this one quite blind.

I don't think the author is for me and that's a shame because the synopsis seemed quite good.

This book was intense! I read the blurb and thought I knew what to expect but I didn’t. There are plot twists and turns on every page! This book was really well written. It hops back forth in time between child Saskia and current day Saskia. The setting is a giant old family estate that has been handed down from generation to generation. It covers a lot of deep family issues (the secrets!) and gives insight into the life of a child prodigy. The ending was completely unexpected. I think my favourite part was the little blurbs from “feminist fairytales” that Saskia’s mom wrote. They start off each chapter. Overall a great book!

What’s Going On?

Following the sudden death of her mom, Saskia returns to her hometown and finds herself caught in estate/inheritance complications. The house that has been bequeathed to her family for over five generations is now in the hands of an outsider, Patrick. And Saskia has a history, shall we say, with Patrick. Shocked and confused, Saskia and her father believe there must be something off about this whole arrangement. As Saskia ventures to find the truth, she confronts her prodigious past (and its fizzling out) and explores her relationship with her mother.


What Works?

-The prodigy premise was so fascinating. The idea always enthralled me, and gosh how I related to it. Burnt out gifted kid, also the state of being a woman. But we’ll get into that later.

-On a related note, it made for great one-liners like “her personal history is one of almosts” and cutting passages like “And isn’t there’s something in that word, ingenue, that makes you want to claw at his skin? The erasing of everything else you were into a stock character, an archetype. The removal of individuality, uniqueness, of everything that made you special. Doesn’t it hurt?”

-Fairytales for little feminists. A lot of them were cringy, but, y’know, better than the original. A bit too commercial feminism but maybe that’s the point. They were there to disrupt the dominant cultural narratives, and that’s what they did. They’d do well accompanying children’s exposure to mainstream media because they’re very direct.

-Liked the Persephone & Demeter resolution.

-Loved the ending.

-Presented convoluted themes simply on the surface, more underneath once you look. Left me with reflection material.

-We got to analyze the dual developments of her relationship with her mother and her relationship with her groomer. Intricately intertwined! We saw how her distance from her mother’s love primed her for a spot in Patrick’s series. Yet, it’s her mother’s love that drove her throughout the novel. At its weakest, it overpowered his strength. I appreciate the depth of these relations.

-The theme of age in our society — yes!!! Fitting title for this ingenue exploration. She grows too old for Patrick; she grows too old to be a child prodigy. It’s this whole idea of women and time — the harsh feel of time, the constant ticking that only women are exposed to. Those are the major pressings of time thematically speaking, but we also see it elsewhere — primarily in the main plot (racing against time to save her family’s legacy), inherently in the background (her mom ran out of time). The whole theme (and as a whole, topic) of time enlivens me, argh I can talk about it on and on and on and on.


What Needs Work?

-Choppy flow in the first half, could’ve gone smoother. You didn’t know what direction the book was going to go in, but in a confused-organizational way, not a suspenseful-intentional way. Second half went way better.

-More exploration on being a “failed” child prodigy at the beginning — had soooo much potential to show how her life changed now, how her frameworks and orientation for living were. Second half explored more, though.

-The mystery surrounding the house’s inheritance wasnt all that intriguing. Their hypothetical explanation ended up being the correct one, so it dipped into redundancy. Neither did I feel the stakes — I knew there was some big past with Patrick (and could guess what it was), but there was no emotional build up. Saskia also went to bat in contending the will only to lose all the intensity when confronting him; the intention may have been to show Patrick’s influence over her, but it discredited the entire angle. Granted, the scene meant to function as a stepping stone, but we lost the little mysteries in the grander mystery.

-On the subject of Patrick, we needed more of the “good guy” story in the first third of the book, the story Saskia had been telling herself all those years. It would’ve made her muddling through the gray area and the ultimate shift more effective.

-A solid back-and-forth riposte lacking in Saskia and Patrick’s early confrontations.

-The plot point of why Saskia quit piano was a missed opportunity. The mystery enshrouding it could have been built up, us wondering why did she give it all up? The grand reveal would have then been more impactful and given more credence to the issue’s complexity.


Who Should Read This?

Those wanting an interesting take on mother-daughter relations. Grooming readers. People enthralled by the theme of time.

THE INGENUE, by Rachel Kapelke-Dale, is a dark novel with intriguing subject matter. The writing is smooth, and the plot and structure of the book are interesting. The author blends a mystery with fairy tales in an engaging narrative that follows the journey that Saskia takes into accepting her past trauma and moving beyond the role of victim. The characters are fully developed with their pasts woven into the present narrative of the story. There is layer upon layer of secrecy, but karma sorts out everyone’s deeds and delivers a dish that the guilty deserves. For the first half of the book, I wasn’t taken with the story, but I am so glad that I kept reading. Between the lines, the reader finds a deeply running theme of a mother’s choice, her sacrifice, that she willingly gives to set her daughter free. What a great book this would be for a book club.

Predictable: no. Clever and entertaining: yes.

Saskia returns to her childhood home or rather mansion in Milwaukee for her mother’s funeral. She was always told that this property with multiple bedrooms, bathrooms, towers, gardens and beautiful art on the walls would someday be hers to keep in the ancestry line. But Saskia gets a shock when she learns her mother, Evie, made other plans. When her will is presented to Saskia and her father, Mike, it states that the $2.9 million dollar property is to be left to a development officer at the university to be used by art students. This changes everything. Since the late 1800s, there were five generations of women at the Harper house. Saskia wasn’t going to let it go without a fight. She quickly made her way to the attorney’s office to challenge her mother’s wishes.

I couldn’t flip the pages fast enough to find out what was going to happen next. Why would her mother, without any discussion even to her husband, pass along the mansion that has always been in the family to someone else? Saskia learns that the Patrick is the one that will benefit from the will. He was Saskia’s secret love affair during her teenage years and later broke her heart when he ended their relationship at 18 years old. She needed to see him.

There is so much going on in this book that it can tangle up the wires in your brain while reading. You can easily imagine which characters you like and which are less desirable. The reader gets immersed in the family of musicians, artists and writers. Saskia goes to her mother’s studio and looks at the 26 books she wrote about fairy tales. She noted that the “books don’t contain universal truths so much as they contain an alternate universe” encouraging others to be adventurous, and the best that you can.

I loved this book. It was captivating from the beginning and with all the multiple faucets, it all came together at the end – well, that’s the only part I didn’t like. I would have wanted something different. Yet, I found it to be very creative with lots of suspense and much to think about.

My thanks to Rachel Kapelke-Dale, St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for allowing me to read an advanced copy with an expected release date of December 6, 2022.

what a great book that talks about consent and what happens when one falls in love with a older man. I loved the different times and back to present time. I loved her dad and meeting josh. I loved how music was a part of the story and how she finally made peace and found others like her. He was such a creep. Loved the fairy tales stories with a twist.

Thank you to St Martin Press and NetGalley for allowing me to read and review the digital ARC of The Ingenue

Unfortunately this book didn’t grab me like I thought it would, and overall it was kind of hard to follow for me with the two time changes. The book had a great premise but I felt like the story fell flat. I think the most interesting thing about this whole book was the snippets at the beginning of the chapters with the feminist fairy tales

And here I thought The Ballerinas was phenomenal!
The Ingenue by Rachel Kapelke-Dale is astounding!

Very cleverly woven together, this is a deep character-driven story.
The writing is excellent and pleasantly paced, the characters are in-depth and true to life. 
Saskia's journey is an inspiring one. Her growth was amazing and I truly enjoyed reading her story.
The words in this book are beautifully written.
I was fully absorbed and honestly wish I could un-read just to read again for the first time.
I adored the flowing writing, the setting, and the beautiful language.
The Ingenue comes roaring, it is a stunner of a novel, with electric prose.. desire and longing.
I tore through this unforgettable read.. And will highly recommend this novel!

I ultimately fell in love with this stunning cover and can't wait for release day to have it sitting on my shelf.
I tried to wait and read closer to pub date which is expected to release on 12|6, but couldn't wait any longer.
I now have a favorite author to add to my list.
Rachel is absolutely killing it in the writing world.

I felt honored to pre-read it.
 
“I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.”

St. Martin's Press,
Thank You for your generosity and gifting me a copy of this amazing eARC!
I will post my review to my platforms, blog, B&N and Waterstone closer to pub date.