Joe/Josephine is an insecure yet studious student at an English private girls boarding school. Skipper, her best friend until their second last year at the school, has moved on and become closer to the twins. To make matters worse, Joe has to share a room with Gerry, the skating champion no one likes. Joe befriends a townie, a connection frowned upon by the students, the Divines. But Joe continues the friendship and develops a crush on Stuart, her townie friend’s brother. Soon everything goes from bad to worse in an environment where girls from privileged homes, have an air of entitlement. They laugh at others behind their backs, tease relentlessly and bully unpopular Gerry.
Roxy, the powerful, Margo, the politician, Tunde, the journalist and Allie, Mother Eve are the key characters who witness and are part of a new era exploding all over the world. Young girls develop a power that sends men rioting because they can’t accept they are now the weaker sex.
Frumpy Margery Benson is a middle-aged English spinster who works as a home science teacher. Her three older brothers are killed in WW11. Her parents die. And her remaining two aunts die. Her life is lonely and boring, until she discovers a note with a comical caricature of herself being passed around her sniggering classroom. She storms out of the school stealing the head mistress’s boots, and is determined to leave England still suffering from rationing after the war. Margery decides to chase the dream she abandoned after her father’s suicide, and discover the golden beetle of New Caledonia .
This novel has an average rating from my local library readers, but I found it a fascinating insight into the Valois dynasty seen through the eyes of Marguerite de Valois during the 16th century. Although King Charles heads the French dynasty, his mother, Catherine de Medicis, is the one who makes all the political decisions. Her schemes to maintain and increase her family’s rule include marrying her off to any man if it will increase the family’s power. The Queen’s desire to maintain a stronghold on its kingdom culminates in the St Bartholomew’s Day Massacre when thousands of Huguenot are slaughtered.
Will Margurerite realize what kind of a person her mother really is, and overcome her desire to please her?
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