Synopsis

In an elite English boarding school where the girls kiss the marble statue of the famous dead author who used to walk the halls, a butch antipodean outsider arrives to take up the antiquated role of “matron.” Within this landscape of immense privilege, where difference is met with hostility, the matron finds herself unsure of her role, her accent and her body.

That is until she meets Mrs. S, the headmaster’s wife, a woman who is her polar opposite—an assured, authoritative paragon of femininity. Over the course of a long, restless summer, their unspoken yearning blooms into an illicit affair of electric intensity. But, as the summer fades, a choice must be made.

Review

I really wanted to love this. Sapphic dark academia is a genre I love to read and this sounded brilliant.

However. I struggled to get into it from the get go because of the style – there are no speech marks, or even line breaks – so decided to listen to it instead. This really helped with identifying the characters, which were quite well-written, and the structure but, although I was quite interested in the story initially, it dragged on and was really quite boring and unrealistic.

About halfway through – still waiting for something to happen – I got a bit fed up with the audio, as some of the characters’ voices were irritating. So I switched back to the physical copy and skimmed the last part, rather than giving up entirely.

I’d hoped for a scandalous dark academia story, but there was no real sexual tension at all; when they (finally) got down to it I was expecting passion and steam. Nope. The sex was painfully PG and felt dull and glossed over.

The ending was expected and even more of a letdown. I was hoping for something more like Lost and Delirious which has a bit more drama and betrayal.

Disappointing.

Thanks to Fourth Estate Books for my proof copy. Opinions my own.