I really enjoyed this. I took my time reading it since it's kind of heavy subject matter and I never had to remind myself where I was in the story so I think that speaks to how into it I was.

Side note - I loved those feminist fairy tale blurbs and I would totally read that imaginary book.

I think what I liked so much about this was all the layers. It wasn't just a story about a girl coming to terms with her in inappropriate relationship with a predator. In fact, at the beginning of the book, that's not what it was at all since she was still under the impression that what they had was special and unique. It's only as she's realizing the manipulation of other girls, the blackmailing of her mom, the sheer goodness of Josh, and resurfacing memories that she sees how wrong and damaging it was.

There was a point towards the end of the book that I thought "What?! No. I think this just jumped the shark." However, when she told her dad, it was so very satisfying. And you know what? I'm a fan of the ending. Sometimes you just need to read a story where the bad guy gets what they deserve.

This is my second read by Rachel Kapelke-Dale and my second 4 star by her. I'll definitely continue picking her up.

Like the Ballerinas, the writing style of this one is by far the best part of the story. Definitely gives you the uncomfortable read similar to My Dark Vanessa, and as such I would make sure that’s a theme you’re okay with reading before delving into it, but I thought it was a very thought provoking read overall.

I really enjoyed The Ballerinas and was absolutely thrilled to get a copy of this book from @stmartinspress. I find this author’s work/writing very unique and I really can appreciate it. I saw this one described in good reads as “My Dark Vanessa meets Queen’s Gambit” and I completely agree. I was very invested in this story and especially the main character, Saskia. I really loved the interdispersed chapters with the feminist fairy tales.

Quick synopsis: Saskia is a former piano prodigy who returns home following the death of her mother. She is expecting to inherit the family estate which has a long rich history. I stated she finds it’s been left to a man she has a long, complicated history with. She wants to figure out why this happened but in order to do so is faced with the troubles and secrets of her past.

Thank you so much NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for my ecopy in exchange for an honest review!

The Ingenue is a timely and important read about a young piano playing prodigy in the wake of the Me Too Movement. Told in alternating timelines of past and present allows the reader to get a good sense of Saskia's illicit childhood relationship with a much older man (a consuming and abusive affair that ultimately leads to her fall from grace) and her current vengeful need for retribution,

This was an intense read full of surprising, unexpected twists and a shocking, unpredictable ending, If you're looking for an original, clever, and well written revenge novel full of suspense, complex relationships, a crumbling Gothic mansion (princess tower included), and feminist themed fairy tales of young women taking back what was once theirs, then I highly recommend this one-of-a-kind, evocative tale!

Dark story told in dual timelines about Saskia, a childhood piano prodigy, and the fallout from her relationship with an older man. When her estranged mother dies, Saskia returns home to find her mother has left the family home to that man.

I enjoyed this book, but the subject matter was a bit disturbing, it may not be for everyone.

Thank you Netgalley and St. Martin's Press for the ARC!

Rachel Kapelke Dale does it again with her newest novel, The Ingenue, featuring a musical prodigy who has fallen from grace.
Back home to deal with the recent death of her mother, Saskia is expecting to inherit the famed Elf House that she grew up in. But when her mother’s will stipulates Saskia's former lover is the recipient, Saskia goes in search of answers - unlocking the trauma of her past in the process.
Sprinkled throughout with vignettes of feminist retellings of fairytales, this searing story explores the mother-daughter relationship and examines the dark truth behind sexual predators. I was transfixed by her writing and rooting for Saskia to slay her demons like a true fairytale heroine. This heart-thumping novel about music was a best book of 2022 pick for me.

Trigger warnings are need.

The book was good. But there need to be warnings about the relationship between Saskia and Patrick, her music teacher.

I wasn’t able to fully immerse myself in this thriller. I felt the potential and the eerie nature from settings and the scenes. But I unfortunately had to DNFN.

I don't know what I expected with this one, but it was enjoyable. Very thrilling and intriguing. I liked the main character quite a bit

THE INGENUE by Rachel Kapelke-Dale had me hooked from the shocking beginning. I sat there, stunned, wanting to know more, but wondering what kind of person Saskia was and how she had gotten to that point. My perceptions of her evolved as the book progressed and the events of her life, past and present, unfolded. Told in a dual timeline, we flash back and forth to see how someone who was a childhood piano prodigy ended up estranged from her mother, living somewhere far away, and not touching a piano. On top of it all, why did her mom not only fail to tell her she was sick, but also leave the family home, passed down through generations, to a man Saskia has a past with? As Saskia fights to save her family home, she looks for the answers to these questions and finds more than she expected. The more Saskia uncovers, the more she has to reconcile her childhood beliefs of what happened with those of an adult looking back with experience and figure out what comes next for her. Kapelke-Dale keeps you traveling through the novel, throwing in unexpected twists, with a shocking final one, to bring the roller coaster ride to a satisfying conclusion.
Thanks to the publisher for the chance to read an advanced copy. All opinions are my own and freely given.
#TheIngenue #RachelKapelkeDale #StMartinsPress

The ingenue is told in dual timelines, the past and present life of Saskia. In the past, she’s a teen piano prodigy in a relationship with a much older man, and in the present, her childhood home is left in her mother’s will to someone else instead of her and she has to figure out why.

This was a bit of a heavy read, with dark topics, and at times a little unbelievable. Took a weird turn and ended up becoming kind of a different story than what I thought it was about halfway, which I liked. More becomes revealed as the storyline of the past goes on and it starts to come together. It was a good book and I’m glad I had the opportunity to read it.

Quick Thoughts

I really enjoyed this novel. For the second time, Kapelke-Dale has delivered a wonderfully haunting contemporary story that I couldn't get enough of. I loved reading the way Saskia's story unfolded both in her present life, and the way she's still intertwined with her past, like all of us are, even if she's tried to shake it.

It took a little while for the story to get going and really hook me, but just like in Kapelke-Dale's previous novel, The Ballerinas, the story unfolded like a movie in my head, and I was invested from the start all the way to the climax.

Overall, I am so glad that I got the chance to read Ingenue and I just know I will be eagerly awaiting the author's next work.

I loved Rachel Kapelke-Dale’s first novel, The Ballerinas, and her second novel, The Ingenue, does not disappoint. In fact, this novel represents Kapelke-Dale’s deepening skills as a writer. Always strong in character development, in The Ingenue, Kapelke-Dale’s strength lies in her plot structure and the clever way in which she reverses the stereotypical fairy tale in a way which empowers women. The novel opens on Saskia Kreis (a former child prodigy pianist) who has returned to her childhood home, the Elf House, after her mother’s death. There, she learns that her mother has left Elf House to Patrick, the Director of Development at the university where she taught, while leaving Saskia the royalties to her book “Fairy Tales for Little Feminists.” Complicating things is the fact that Patrick is a child sexual abuser, who left a trail of broken young girls in his wake, including Saskia, simply because they had committed the sin of growing older. Rather than ruin her life by leaving Elf House to her abuser, Saskia comes to understand that her mother wanted Saskia to fight for her story, rather than merely returning to Elf House, where she would be living inside the stories of others. I highly recommend this book, and am eagerly looking forward to the author’s next novel. 4.5 out of 5.0 stars.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with a complimentary copy of this book.

This is a meh book. The jumping between different years gets annoying and the characters are bland and unlikable. It was slow going but I did finish it. It is a forgettable book for for me. 2 1/2 stars .

I enjoyed the well-developed characters and as a native Milwaukeean whose birthday was just half a year off from the main character of the story, Kapelke-Dale did a fantastic job of making me yearn for hometown. Jumps between present and past were well-executed and this was a solid read.

I received an eARC via NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an eARC of this book.
Interesting well developed characters whose interactions keep one reading. Ending was not predictable which made a compelling read.

The lower rating is because, for me- it was really hard to get into. It was just slow but when it picked up I absolutely loved it!

Saskia was a kid piano prodigy with a terrible mother, a crumbling family legacy in the form of a dilapidated house, and a sketchy teacher who still looms in her mind. Great premise, not so great book. First of all, I hated every single character. They were either whiny, underwritten, or horrible but they were written in such a way that I had trouble mustering up anything for them. So many of their problems could have been solved so easily (or avoided altogether.) I really liked the premise, but unfortunately, cannot suggest this slow and not good book.

A dark, gritty tale of secrets and revenge. The novel is set against the backdrop of #metoo movement and has been compared to My Dark Vanessa. The execution was lacking and the pacing was extremely slow throughout much of the story. The premise is very good, a young piano prodigy, strained mother/daughter dynamic, and an unlikable antagonist.

Sometimes going in fairly blind doesn't pay off because I was under the impression this book was going to be more about a strained relationship between a mother and a daughter but instead it was more of a #MeToo story.

The beginning started really slow for me. It took me 3 days just to make it to 30%. I blame the timeline/narration style for this. The chapters are broken into Saskia's past as a child piano playing prodigy and then into the present where she's in her 30's and she has returned home after the death of her mother. Her early childhood as a prodigy didn't serve a lot of purpose, in my opinion, and it was very slow. I kept waiting for this big reveal of this fallout between her and her mother and what caused her to drop piano. Unless I just completely misread the cues that was what was implied from the very beginning.

Instead we started to get this story similar to Lolita or My Dark Vanessa about Saskia and this colleague of her mother's who starts hanging around her life in her early teens. Thus began the start of what would become the #Metoo portion of the story. While this was interesting and read much faster than the other it wasn't uplifting and the "villain" still felt like he was winning at every turn. Saskia seemed to be reliving events like it was the first time and maybe this was partly due to trauma but it was almost like it was the first time she was seeing it as such. There was a pivotal moment in which her memories changed from love to manipulation and that started the notion of a revenge plot.

This is where the story sort of jumped the shark for me as I don't feel like the revenge plot was plausible or believable as it was hasty, in the moment, and just seemed like the author was ready to end the story and move on and this was as good a way as any. It also really ticked me off that the author doesn't explain how to say the heroine's name until past the 50% mark and of course I hadn't been saying it in my head correctly so that was just annoying. If you're going to provide correct pronunciation then do so in the first 5-10%!

Overall I didn't get a lot out of the story. It wasn't uplifting, it didn't make me feel girl power or female charged, I didn't feel really entertained and it kind of felt like work getting through it. It wasn't bad but it wasn't great either.