Honestly, this gets off to a really slow start. I kept questioning whether this was really the same author that wrote The Ballerinas. But then she sort of hits you with it. And it's a bit stunning, but mostly in a good way.

A young woman, a former piano prodigy, returns home to settle things after her mother dies. After finding out she willed the ancestral home to someone else, she starts along a quest to get it back, and not for the reasons you might think. I don't want to give too much away.

If you liked the author's previous book or like this new wave of novels where the women get justice in a world where men are being held accountable for past wrongs, I definitely recommend this.

Oh wow this was really well written. Its a bit slow, especially the beginning, but I'm glad I stuck through it.

Rachel Kapelke-Dale has such a firm grasp on a gritty novel. Content warning for SA and CA.

I wasn't sure what exactly to expect from this novel, but I expected it to be excellent after having read Kapelke-Dale's The Ballerinas.

In The Ingenue we are introduced to Saskia Kreis. Saskia was a child prodigy in piano, but she has long since left behind any accolades, awards, and achievements. Instead of fame and success, she's lost her last job after having had an affair with her married boss and is currently getting by crafting SAT questions. She's taken aback with the news of her mother's death. A fate she didn't know to expect so soon, but her mother, Evelyn had kept the news of her terminal illness from her and kept her distance in the last months of her life.

Saskia is left grieving and confused, back at a home she hasn't been to in years with questions her mother can't answer. And just when she thinks things can't get worse, she finds out that the house she thought was her future was left to someone else. And honestly, it's the last person she would have expected: Patrick Kinter. The man she loved and lost.

As Saskia learns more about her mother and her own past, she is quick to reevaluate her relationship with Patrick. This is a page-turner that will have you flipping pages quickly to figure out just what has happened in Saskia's past and what her future will bring.

I especially loved the introductions to each chapter and how they gave excerpt from Evelyln's reimagined feminist fairytales for girls. Should Kapelke-Dale ever wish to elaborate and publish that, it would be a great supplement to this book! The pace and tone of this book were perfect and engaging from start to finish. The book itself has a sort of haunted, fairytale feel to it as well.

I could not get into this book. The writing was not for me and the story was slow and badly paced. I do not recommend.

1/5 stars

"The Ingenue" by Rachel Kapelke is a deep, complex story about Saskia, a child prodigy pianist, now returning to her hometown as an adult. Many topics seamlessly woven into this story, reconciling past and present as well as Me-Too movement, high pressure childhood, mother's death, and legacy house about to be lost. A powerful story. Thank you NetGalley, the author and publisher for the copy for review. All opinions are my own.

I loved this story. After reading the prologue, I knew it would be something I’d enjoy — and I found myself squeezing in reading time any chance I got!

What I loved
🖤 dual timeline
🖤 family dynamics
🖤 the gothic vibes were incredible. the writing was very chilling + suspenseful!
🖤 Saskia was a piano prodigy + the story explored the burden of talent
🖤 Saskia’s mother was the bestselling author of the Fairytales for Little Feminists series + I loved how each chapter started with a feminist fairytale!

The Ingenue is an intriging tale about the pressure of being a child prodigy and the expectations that go with it. It's dark and twisty but not in a way that makes the story unenjoyable.
I'll admit that I didn't like Saskia at first. Coming home after her mother's death, she seems lost and self involved. It's not until she learns that the house she grew up in was left to her ex lover that we start to understand why.
Told through Saskia's point of view, both as a teenage prodigy and as an adult, we get to see the pieces of the inheritance decision come together, leading to a very shocking but mostly satisfying ending. More on display than Saskia's piano playing genius, is the relationship she shared with her mother Evie. I thought it was a great exploration on the mother/daughter relationship told through the lens of a child who's famous parent demanded that same level of greatness from her child, and what happens when the child doesn't live up to that potential.
At times dark, but utterly thrilling, The Ingenue is another sleeper hit from Rachel Kapelke-Dale and I can't wait to see what she comes up with next.

Thank you to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for the chance to read and reivew this title.

Similar to The Ballerinas, this was dark, weird, engaging, and I could not put it down. This is an under the radar gem that I hope gets a lot more attention.

Big thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

As soon as I read that this book was a mix of The Queen’s Gambit (Didn’t read the book, but loved the Netflix show) and My Dark Vanessa I knew I had to have a copy…but after reading the first chapter I was unsure. It starts a little slow and me being a mood reader didn’t know how to feel about it… so I put it down for a few months. WOW, I am so glad I picked this up again and gave it another try. I finished it in two days!! This definitely gives My Dark Vanessa vibes with an even better ending, in my opinion. There is also a great twist in the last third. I really enjoyed the little fairytale twists at the beginning of each chapter. If you enjoyed My Dark Vanessa, but wasn’t quite satisfied by the ending, then I highly recommend this book. 4 stars!

Beautifully told story and such power behind the words. The characters were amazing as well. I can see the relation to My Dark Vanessa, but this deals with it differently. Great read!

After reading and enjoying Rachel Kapelke-Dale's "The Ballerinas" last year I was excited to be approved for an early review copy of "The Ingenue." I am a dancer and one of the things I liked about "The Ballerinas" is how Kapelke-Dale did a wonderful job researching and presenting the complexities of the world of ballet. I thought she may present this kind of narrative in "The Ingenue."

The description of the book and comparison to "The Queen's Gambit" also set my expectations for this book to be somewhat of a comeback story with a me-too plot line. I was incredibly confused and am not sure exactly what Kapelke-Dale presented here.

Some mild spoilers are ahead so stop here if you need to.

This book is about a former piano prodigy and heiress named Saskia who's mom has passed. Her mom has left the family home to a man who just so happened to be her daughter's abuser as a teenage girl. The story is dual timeline: In the past setting we kind of learn about Saskia's career but this book is less about piano and more about how Patrick, her abuser, groomed her as a teen.

The present timeline revolves around Saskia reconciling with her past trauma while also attempting to figure out how she is going to keep the house she grew up in. At the beginning of each chapter we read excerpts from her mother's feminist fairy tale books which other than being mentioned incessantly do little for the plot.

Supporting characters who enter the story and then disappear include the following: Saskia's boxing coach, nothing comes of the boxing storyline. Saskia's cousin Lexi who offers to help Saskia finish the stories her mother started which is then dropped from the storyline. Saskia's fake teenage boyfriend and semi real present time lawyer turned boyfriend who did relatively nothing for the storyline.

I forced myself to get through the first 70% of the book and then it took a weird but predictable turn that livened up the pace a bit. That being said I can't say I enjoyed this book at all. The characters felt disconnected from each other and the plot was just sloppy.

Unfortunately, I won't be able to recommend this one.

This is a perfect story to go into blind if you feel you can handle content that may occasionally come with a trigger warning. I LOVED this story. The pacing was perfection. Everything twisted and turned at just the right time. Unputdownable.

Chapters open with blurbs of “fairytales for little feminists,” that are modern retellings of fairytale endings if the princess had a sane head on her shoulders and healthy boundaries. These alone could make a book worth reading.

The story itself follows our FMC Saskia on a dual timeline of growing up as a prodigy, and her as an adult now, returning to her hometown for her mother’s funeral. Finding out her home, a family inheritance, has been bequeathed to her ex-boyfriend, Saskia kicks things into motion. This tale of revenge is sickening, satisfying, and guaranteed to haunt.

Overall I really enjoyed this book and am landing on 4 stars - but do have mixed feelings on the different sections and POV featured. I found present day Saskia to be quite interesting and enjoyed the storyline of her returning to her hometown and untangling her past, but I found myself skimming the young Saskia sections a bit more. Fairy Tales for Little Feminists was a highlight - 5 stars for those (and would read the entire book)!

Unfortunately this one wasn't for me. I thought the concept was interesting and I really enjoyed the duel time lines, but it was a bit too slow. It was a revenge story but I felt like nothing was really happening. I also really didn't like the main character, but I did think the ending was perfect.

Thank you to the publisher for my advanced copy.

I loved the well developed and interesting characters. I also loved that a big part of the story was about aging and family. A little hard to read about an older man and young women, probably because of the Me too movement, just too sensitive a topic. I did like the time jumps

After reading and enjoying The Ballerinas, I was over-the-moon to get an ARC of The Ingenue by Rachel Kapelke-Dale. I was not disappointed, with this new novel another foray into the dark side of extremely talented youth crossed with manipulation and grooming by a much older man.

The Ingenue is not a light-hearted book. It is told in dual timelines, present day when Saskia has returned home too late for final good-byes to her mother and discovers that her mother's will leaves the family home (passed down for generations) to a work colleague instead of her daughter, and the 1990's when Saskia is an extremely talented and focused piano prodigy. The two stories intertwine to reveal the real reason that her mother made her strange bequest, and Saskia's determination to ensure the Elf House stays with its rightful owners. The over-arching theme of female empowerment is emphasized at the beginning of every chapter with excerpts from Saskia's mother's children's book, "Fairy Tales for Little Feminists" which were highly entertaining. I would definitely want a copy if it were published! Content warning: grooming and statutory rape are significant to the story.

The book was a page turner, part mystery, part coming of age, and drew me in from the prologue. I was not thrilled with the resolution of the story, as it took a bit of a bizarre turn in the last 25%, which kept it from being a straight-up 5 star read for me. I will definitely be looking for the next book by this author.

Thank you to Netgalley and St. Martin's Press for the digital ARC of The Ingenue. The opinions in this review are my own.

I really enjoyed The Ballerinas so I was excited to snag an ARC of The Ingenue. Unfortunately, it did not live up to expectations. This is tagged as thriller and suspense, but man, the first half was a slog and it was pretty clear early on where this thing was going. I think that categorization is a stretch. There are definitely reasons why Saskia is emotionally stunted, a bit bratty, and a lot lost, but she was still a pretty unlikeable character. Most of the characters here are unlikeable, but the plot wasn't compelling enough to overcome that. And the ending was just too convenient.

3.5 stars

Having loved The Ballerinas by Rachel Kapelke and loved it, I was excited to read The Ingenue. I have mixed emotions after finishing. I liked the set up and the beginning. Very clever to have excerpts from her writer mother’s feminist twists to fairy tales that we know at the beginning of each chapter. I also liked the multiple timelines in each chapter. Living in New York after attending Juilliard, Saskia, an accomplished pianist, returns to her home in Milwaukee for the funeral of her mother Evelyn Harper Kreis. The Harper family immigrated to Milwaukee in 1871, became wealthy, and built a mansion It was passed down several generations to the oldest male until Evelyn inherited the house. This book is full of family secrets, characters to hate, and a few characters to like. Saskia, confronts her past when she suffered from a long-term child predator, Patrick. The story became very long for me during the middle third of the book making it take much more time for me to read. I enjoyed the last third of the book and enjoyed Sasha’s father and Josh.

“The Ingenue,” by Rachel Kapelke-Dale is a fabulous read! It has an intriguing plot, with mystery, angst, and interesting characters. I loved “The Ballerinas,” and this novel also did not disappoint. It is perfectly written with interesting, well-developed characters. It definitely was a page turner for me, actually into the wee hours of the night!
Saskia, the main character must go home due to her mother’s death. Her mother was a published author of feminist fairy tales. Every chapter of “The Ingenue”, begins with one, which on their own, are unique and amusing. Saskia struggles to deal with the loss of her mom, and the surprising last will and testament. Saskia’s complicated past comes back, creating a whirlwind of emotions that haunt her in many ways.
I genuinely enjoyed this book, so much that I did not want it to end. Just know, what you think will happen in the end is not at all what you would expect! I strongly recommend this fabulous read and cannot wait for Rachel Kapelke-Dale’s next one.
Thank you to Netgalley and St. Martin’s Press for this ARC.

Reminded me of My Dark Vanessa in a good way! Loved the flow and plot. Lots of twists and turns and a good mix of revenge and love, which I love!