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[REVIEW] The Wisteria Society of Lady Scoundrels - India Holton

★★★★★

Before anyone calls me a phony, the first book I review being a 5 star is a pure coincidence the rest will NOT be so lucky...

Spoilers Under Keep Reading

I don't even know where to begin with this novel, I went into reading it with extremely low cliché historical romance expectations and then it kicked me in the butt, told me to pull myself together and then dragged me along for the ride.

My initial opinion was very much formed on the fact that during the first few pages I was deeply and profoundly confused. You're dropped into this setting of fancy Victorian ladies at tea time and then suddenly BOOM an assassin! Now, this all becomes fine and dandy once you reread the blurb and tell yourself, 'aha yes, this is where the pirate aspect comes in' until once again BOOM the pirates fly houses! And this information is first introduced in a sentence along the lines of:

"There was this one maid but she stole a house and left her mistress."

I'm sorry- she stole a what?

What didn't help was how the constant references to tea almost made me put the book down multiple times. If there is anything I dislike in a novel its banal overused humour along the lines of -how funny would it be if we had the British people like drink tea all the time??-

Now here's where the flying houses come in, the fact that something so unconventional and flabbergasting is happening at the same time as this super cliché British nonsense somehow makes the humour work? Two negatives make a positive I suppose. And it works so well and it's just so ridiculous that its genuinely funny. As in, some of the lines in this novel would have me physically jumping out of my bed to find sticky notes so that I could tab excerpts to laugh at in the future, and as a master procrastinator I would usually not even think about tabbing a book.

A personal favourite scene of mine was when Constantinopla's grandmother was describing Tom Eames.

"Yesterday he offered to help with her math lessons. They spent all afternoon shut up in the library, toiling over multiplication. And last night I thought I heard Oply cry out, and so I went to her room, only to find Tom in his nightshirt at the door. He'd also heard the noise, he said and rushed to see if she was safe." He must have run dreadfully fast to get there before I did, considering his room is upstairs. Indeed the effort was apparent in his flushed face. Such a fine, upstanding young man."

Call me immature but this is hilarious.

But anyway, Oply and Tom are not the stars of this show. The real swooning and flirting happens in between Cecillia Bassingwaithe - a most elegant lady pirate- and Ned. He's just Ned.

No just kidding he's the assassin from before.

I don't even remember how that happened at this point, something about the queen and Cecillia's evil dad and Ned thinking Cecillia's mom is hot. He was a man of many identities. I believe he was also Oply's fencing tutor at one point. Again, hilarious, give me 10 more. Now how that all unfolds is up to you to remember/ find out, I'm just here to talk about what I liked.

Despite the many layers of humour, Ned and Cecillia's romance arc felt very genuine and serious; it gave their characters enough believable meat on their bones for me to be able to root for them even when some parts of their backstories were whacky.

Their arc also made way for the most beautiful YA sex scene I have ever read in my life. You see, being in the YA target audience often leaves a reader in a constant state of fear that they'll flip a page and all at once witness the most filthy, kinky and explicit 'spice' scene known to mankind. The issue with other novels is that generally the sex does not add anything to the plot, it is just a juicy little bit to get young women excited about mediocre writing. Joke's on you we're not stupid, we still realise you can't write, but I digress.

In Wisteria Society intercourse feels like the natural progression of Cecillia and Ned's relationship and it was cementing their love for one another. I also appreciated how it seemed to be a critique of purity culture during the Victorian era, with Cecillia feeling the need to apologise for experiencing sexual attraction.

The scene was also frankly written beautifully and dodged every increment of vulgarity that an intimate scene could entail. But that brings me to my next point, which is to say that India Holton is generally a brilliant writer. I don't know how she managed to implement humour into every inch of the book, during fight scenes, romance scenes, random conversations, even emotional scenes, and it felt appropriate each and every time. I fear I may have even snatched up some of those literary techniques for my own novels (still under construction and heavy self-scrutiny).

I would like to say that this book contributed to some other greater purpose or meaning but it really didn't, however it did what it was meant to achieve, and achieved it with flying colours. I was thoroughly entertained and swooning for hunky Ned myself. Therefore I still believe that this is a five star novel and probably one of my favourite books from this year.

1/12 Coming Up: Gild - Raven Kennedy

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12 months 12 books ~ MASTERLIST

People of tumblr 12 book reviews are hurtling your way! As a result of me realising that I do not read nearly as much as I should I made damn well sure that I finished at least one book each month of 2024. As the year comes to a close I now have 12 scrumptious little reviews to write. The books I destroy will be as follows:

Wisteria Society of Lady Scoundrels - India Holton

Gild - Raven Kennedy

Fourth Wing - Rebecca Yarros

Twisted Games - Ana Huang

City of Nightmares - Rebecca Schaeffer

Frankenstein - Mary Shelley

Renegades - Marissa Meyer

The League of Gentlewomen Witches - India Holton

Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries - Heather Fawcett

Twelfth Knight - Alexene Faroll Follmuth

Emily Wilde's Map of the Otherlands - Heather Fawcett

A Clockwork Orange - Anthony Burgess

Do you see a lil something you particularly want to read?? Comment and I shall tag you.

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Writing Prompt, Day 1, 3/3

“I hate you.”

“Aww I love you too!”

“I hate you with every ounce of my being.”

“So when’s the wedding?”

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Writing Prompt, Day 1, 2/3

Write about a character who goes from extremely loud, energetic and optimistic to apathetic, quiet and pessimistic and why this change occurred.

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Writing Prompt, Day 1, 1/3

A has a huge crush on B, A is also a hopeless romantic which means that they constantly flirt with B. B couldn’t care less about them but for some reason the two still constantly stick together. One day B finds out that A was captured by the villain and are heartbroken.