Rose is the new Head of Classics at Caldonbrae Hall, a prestigious 150 year old boarding school for girls. However as soon as she arrives all is now as it seems, education doesn’t seem to be the main focus and there is a mystery surrounding the previous Head of Classics. 

I saw this described as ‘gothic Rebecca meets The Secret History’, which I don’t entirely agree with. It is set in 1992, but you would think with how some characters talk and the values of the school it was the 1890s, but it doesn’t quite have that dark, gothic vibe. I did enjoy our main character Rose, but considering how smart she was supposed to be, how she didn’t find out the “mystery” sooner is confusing as I figured it out quite quickly. 

Although it did drag in some parts I did enjoy this book, it’s a good brooding and unsettling debut and I will look forward to reading more from the author.

I did not enjoy Madam. The subject matter itself which is distasteful enough was not actually the problem. I can read something which I dislike as long as it is a good story and well written; Madam was wholly unbelievable with unlikable characters. I’m not entirely sure who this would appeal to.

2,5 Stars

A young teacher gets the job of her dreams. She will teach Classics at a girl’s boarding school in Scotland. But soon it turns out the school has a special idea about the girls education.

The story sets place in 1992 but it could have been 1952 as well. It felt very old-fashioned. The premise sounded good. Rose, a young teacher thinks she won the lottery when a famous boarding school chooses her as a new teacher. But very soon Rose feels that something is off. While she does not get the hints of what it is about this school, I as a reader very soon guessed what’s going on. But this book does not make sense. Rose is a terrible teacher and absolutely naïve and I have no clue why the school hired her. They have a very knitted and connected system and I would think that they could have found a teacher who would be more complaisant with their ideas. Why bring someone from outside their circle into the school? But the story itself is highly unbelievable. I am not sure this would have been possible in 1993. Yes, there was no internet and no mobile phones but girls in their teens without any idea of the modern world?

The book somehow kept my attention for most of the time. I think it is because of the writing. It chapters went by easily and although Rose is a weak character she is not over-annoying. But the story is predictable and weird. It is a strange book.

In the early 1990s, Rose is the newly appointed Head of Classics at the prestigious Caldonbrae Hall boarding school, and struggles to settle in. She finds the traditions and rules archaic, the teachers and pupils strange, and she soon discovers that her predecessor left in somewhat shady circumstances which no one wants to talk about. New to working in a school like Caldonbrae Hall, and as an outsider brought up in a feminist household, Rose struggles to comprehend the purpose of this school in preparing the girls to enter elite society. Discipline in manners, appearance and the role of a wife are prioritised at the school, all of which frustrate Rose. She also finds that the teaching staff have very traditional views regarding gender roles. Nevertheless she aims to teach her classes putting aside her frustrations and personal views. 

I was looking forward to reading this book, the blurb sounded incredible and it is likened to the Secret History, The Stepford Wives and Circe, all wonderful books which I’ve loved. The influence of these novels is clear from the outset, but sadly this book fell short of my expectations. 

However, starting with the positive; the gothic inspired location of an old institution perching on craggy cliffs in Scotland along with the various secrets and mysteries at the school, such as the disappearance of the teacher and deaths of pupils, do contribute to an initial dark and brooding sense of foreboding. The 1990s era allows for the lack of communication/technology which is well utilised to support the plot. There are also some truthful and believable elements to life in a boarding school, the traditions and routines at times feel inspired and authentic. 

Feminism is clearly the underlying theme of the novel, which would be fine, except this book drums home the feminist narrative in such a way that the long first half becomes a tiring critique of boarding school; satirised and full of caricatures. The cliched bra-burner mother is another convenient and blunt addition to the plot to prove that Rose is A Feminist! 

At the half-way point the plot speeds up and the story suddenly rushes through all the answers to questions raised by Rose in the opening chapters, including her realisation that the school’s secret agenda is in creating pretty young wives for the elite. This was not a revelation for the reader. There is little to the plot after this; stilted conversations, nasty notes and Rose stumbling onto shady sex scenes are used to reiterate the facts we knew. The ending of the book we were already told in the prologue, and although there was scope in the story for twists and turns or supernatural elements, it became a series of anticlimaxes. There are some great plot holes to ponder over though.

Characters throughout are caricatured and stereotyped, and in the most uncomfortable cases, descriptions are also racist. Tokenism is excruciatingly blatant. Rose is a flat and uninspiring protagonist.

However, there was a real plus point for me in the excerpts from mythology and these, in my personal opinion, are the best sections of the novel. By including and embedding stories of females from Greek myths the plot is illustrated at specific points, however whilst these are a wonderful and welcome diversion, their undisguised purpose is for Rose to open up (clunky and forced) feminist dialogue in the classroom and enter some plot. Saying this, the author clearly has a real talent and passion for telling the stories, and this really comes across.. I’d love for her to publish a whole book of the stories of the heroines.

Having read the book, I appreciate that I am not the target audience. Up until the sex/abuse and swearing I would have recommended the book to a younger teenager, it’s got a definite touch of the Mallory Towers, jolly hockey sticks, boarding school life about it and could have been a dark but fun, creepy school-set novel. But I honestly do not know who I’d recommend this book to. 2 stars (4 stars for the mythology bits!) and 0.5 star for setting and boarding school elements.

Many thanks to NetGalley, Quercus and the author for the opportunity to read this advanced copy in return for an honest review. Thoughts are my own.

Set in remote Scotland this novel starts off as a sinister Harry Potter and soon turns into an even darker Stepford Wives-esque setting. I thoroughly enjoyed the references to the females in greek mythology and how Wynne drew parallels between them and the supposedly helpless plight of the school girls. I just wish Rose wasn't such a pitiful character. We constantly roll around the same circle of despair with her. I kind of wish she would practice what she preaches with the girls and finds some strength of character. Other than this, I really enjoyed the atmospheric setting and gothic undertones throughout. 

Thank you to @netgalleyuk for the opportunity to review this book. Madam is due out on 13th May 2021.

If Madam aims at being a horror novel, I think where it failed is that, instead of building a sense of unease, a sense of foreboding, it just managed to make me feel progressively more and more uncomfortable. Its plot almost straddles the line between a thriller and something more horrific, but fulfilling neither particularly successfully.

The story follows Rose Christie (and forgive me if I’m wrong here, but is this not the name of the author of My Immortal?), who is offered a job as Head of Classics at a remote all-girls’ school in Scotland, Caldonbrae Hall. But Caldonbrae Hall is not all that it seems to be, with strange terminology it seems Rose is not yet allowed to know. And then the truth starts to come to light…

I think, primarily, I didn’t like about this book that its plot twists amounted to revealing that the entire school was set up to groom and sexually abuse young girls. Obviously, this is not in and of itself a story not to be told, but I feel it should be told in a different way. A way where, perhaps, each successive reveal isn’t just placed there to disgust you further (shall we talk about how, at one point, there’s the revelation that a group of Japanese girls are kept there, to be sold as prostitutes (this review has a better analysis of that than I could provide)? Or when Rose walks in on girls being taught how to pleasure one of their teachers?). There is the occasional handwaving attempt at mentioning the sheer amount of damage this could do to the girls (and vague mentions of how they’re “brainwashed to want the abuse”), but there’s no real dwelling on it. It’s a plot and book framed to shock the sensibilities of both Rose and its readers. And that, I think, is where it goes fatally wrong.

None of it is treated with any sense of respect. Case in point is the difference between the girls that Rose likes and the ones she does not — those primarily being the ones who are in positions of relative power as students. Each has been abused in this school, that much Rose does allow. But she considers those she likes (i.e. those who like her) in much more positive terms than those she does not (i.e. those who don’t like her, for whatever reason). She sees those she likes as victims, those she does not as somehow not.

I think where this book also falls short is that it fails to imbue any sense of hope in the narrative. You watch this school, the insistence of it that there’s nothing wrong here, Rose’s inability to get word out and get help, steadily chip away at her resolve and think, okay maybe it ends with her entire buy-in. And I guess that’s the horror of it. That this is how these things start to work, you start to rationalise the small things and then the bigger things steadily shrink in size. The slippery slope argument of psychology.

But, God, does it make for a depressing read. This is where I think it seems to try and fail to straddle thriller and horror. The horror is in this slippery slope, but the subject matter seems more like it was going for a thriller. Where, in the end, the bad guys get their comeuppance and the good guys win. Instead, it’s almost by chance that Rose gets out of it, gets the girls out of it.

And then, just to make things even more depressing, the epilogue hints at the entire cycle starting over again.

I really wanted to like Madam. I chose to request it because I had seen it said it was good for fans of Margaret Atwood but I was disappointed. I made it through about 17% of the book before I decided that I couldn't bring myself to read anymore. 

Rose has recently acquired a job at a prestigious school for girls in Scottland. When she starts her new job the students are obstructive at best and her fellow teachers are unhelpful and generally unfriendly. Rose finds the numerous rules difficult to understand and feels very much an outsider. 

All of this had me intrigued enough to keep reading, this and the odd hint of something sinister going on behind the scenes but it was a bit slow paced for me.

I was drawn to this when I saw it was for fans of Margaret Atwood as I loved The Handsmaid Tale and this did not disappoint

This is a book which will keep you guessing and eager to keep on reading until you’ve finished. If you’re after an easy read you don’t need to really absorb yourself in then this probably isn’t for you

I think the title could do with a bit of work but it doesn’t reflect on the brilliant story inside

It’s rare to read a debut that is this intricate and has the ability to keep you holding your breath as you turn the page. I’d been attracted to this book by it he initial comparison by some to Donna Tartt- the way she weaves tales so that a world as vivid as the one you are in is in your hands has been, in my view, unmatched. Until now, that is. I’ve been telling friends that they have to read this book- without detailing much of the plot because I don’t want to spoil the moments that made me gasp!

The book is set in the early 1990s when Rose goes to teach Classics at Caldonbrae- a prestigious boarding school for girls, but all is not as it seems and as Rose uncovers uncomfortable truths she finds herself trapped. I couldn’t see a resolution until it was cleverly placed before me- although it had been in front of me the whole time!! This isn’t a book to read if you’re wanting wishy washy easy to read escapism - I couldn’t put it down or get Caldonbrae out of my mind even after I finished. 

I wasn’t so keen on the title (and hope it doesn’t put others off) nor did I car for the detailed references to the Classics but overall this is one of my favourite books ever. Not only can I not wait for the release date to buy a hard copy (no doubt, like the books by Tartt I read again and again I will be returning to this) but also for future books from this author! A breathtaking piece of art!

A deeply dark and atmospheric book, Madam is reminiscent of du Maurier's Rebecca.

Following the story of Rose, a young Classics teacher, as she steps into teaching at the mysterious Caldonbrae school, Madam is a book that will stick with you.

Rose already feels uncomfortable moving from the state sector to an elite private school but as the story unfolds, we learn just how deep the differences run.

A girls' boarding school on a windy and isolated peninsula, Caldonbrae prides itself on educating young girls to become the perfect elite woman. Rose battles on with trying to teach boisterous classes and snooty sixth formers Classics whilst slowly uncovering the school's dark goal.

Secrets and Latin in a gothic setting, it certainly makes a good read. But be aware that it will likely make you feel deeply uneasy. It is not an easy read. As a teacher myself, I found myself regularly urging Rose to find a way out for herself and her students.

Nevertheless, the atmosphere is enveloping and it is clear than Wynne knows her stuff. Her background as a Classics teacher herself is evident in every classroom scene - she perfectly captures the chaos of a lesson going wrong. I also greatly enjoyed the regular synopses of famous women of ancient history, mythology, and tragedy.

I did feel that the ending wasn't quite what I hoped and I personally think it would have benefitted from a little more length. However, that doesn't detract from the overall quality of the book. A very good read, but do having a palate cleanser ready to follow!

Caldonbrae Hall  is a boarding school for girls situated on the Scottish cliffs .
Rose Christie has just been appointed as Head of Classics and arrives looking forward to the challenge.
However, what she finds is not what she expects. The students are cold and nasty, the traditions are strange and her fellow teachers are secretive.
Then Rose discovers what is really going on at the school. Can she save her girls and if so to what cost to herself. 
Will she ever be free again to live a normal life?

Set in 1990s UK in an elite girls boarding school - it was an interesting twist on the private school theme and I especially enjoyed the references to Greek mythology.  Frustrating reading in parts and the text seemed to jump in places without really finishing the scene.  Slow to start but a page turner towards the end.

As a lover of The Handmaid’s Tale, which the blurb said this was similar to, I thought this would be a great read.  However, I was very disappointed with it overall.  I lost patience with the main character around half way through and found her very irritating and wouldn’t have continued to the end of the book  except I received this free copy in return for a review and so felt obligated to continue.  There was so much potential in the idea and yet the plot didn’t live up to that expectation and the passive nature of the character and not challenging the controlling/grooming actions of others was unbelievable.  Shame the original idea wasn’t carried through more effectively.

Rose accepts a position as Head of Classics at Caldonbrae, an exclusive girls boarding school. But clearly there are secrets, no-one is willing to explain to her exactly how the school works, and at least one of the pupils seems to be obsessed with her. The school is willing to make sure her unwell mother is properly provided for, but they hold all the power and don't keep Rose informed. Some of her classes are more engaged than others, and start to ask more detail about the women of Greek myths.

It's set in the 90s, but even for the 90s the big secret feels quite dated. That's partly the point, but it does stretch credibility somewhat. And it feels a lot like it could all have been resolved if Rose had just sat down and asked proper questions of her colleagues instead of them all dodging round issues (but then so many books have that issue!). It's readable, and the younger girls who get into the classical myths are an engaging group. And the Greek myths are a nice inclusion, which break up the story but help to give both Rose and the girls more agency.

I received a free eARC of this book via Netgalley in return for an honest review.

Firstly, I'd like to note that the format of the eARC was not very well done - there were random line breaks, sections where paragraphs were not spaced out, no page break between chapters, sections where the font was in a different colour, etc. In the interest of fairness, I must say this impacted on the flow of my reading, and I might have found the narrative a little smoother to follow had this been fixed.

However, I really struggled to get through this book for many more reasons than the formatting. There were definitely elements with strong potential within it, but I don't feel that those elements were ever realised.

My greatest issue with Madam is that it felt centred around some highly tokenistic and hypocritical versions of feminism and anti-racism. In the attempt to liberate its women and girls, this book often falls short with a less visible, more subversive form of oppression. For a story that tries to tackle a hyperbolised form of institutionalised sexism, I was disappointed by how regressive and oversimplified some of the content was. For example, the main character - who is supposedly meant to save the girls of Caldonbrae from their gender-based oppression -  says that she wears lipstick every day to defy her feminist mother.

The intersection of racism with sexism is also inherently problematic, as for a substantial portion of the book, the main character - supposedly outraged at the exclusion of BAME students at the school - simply refers to every non-white student at Caldonbrae Hall as "the Asian girls", making no effort to directly interact with them until she is assigned a brief period of looking after them. They are present as a secondary theme rather than as characters in their own right. A scene in the second half of the book also shows a problematic and appropriative attitude towards geisha culture.

The Gothic elements of the storytelling lack lustre. The prose is not particularly atmospheric - though sections of the book are strong; it feels that the author hits her stride particularly well between 50% and 80% of the digital version - and it is very obvious where each plot device is leading. The structure of the story is very obviously formulaic, and it relies heavily on Gothic tropes which are mediocre in their execution - stormy weather, disruption of private spaces and personal property, cleansing through fire, wrongful imprisonment. The sense of threat to Rose, the main character, does not feel more the vaguely present until very late in the book, and it makes absolutely no sense as to why she doesn't at least attempt to leave the school earlier. 

I took real umbrage to the ending. It felt incredibly lazy and very predictable to resolve the problem of the school with a mass fire, begun during a ball for the upper sixth girls, their future husbands, and other adults involved in their grooming. The most authentic element of this key plot point was that the girls who set the fire referred to Dido, Queen of Carthage, and her suicide atop a mock funerary pyre. This event also has major plot holes, as it is inferred that every one of the younger girls got out safely, whilst every single one of the adults involved in their abuse died - yet only a few pages before the fire begins, the main character sees one of the upper sixth girls slipping into the grounds with an older man, so the reader knows that not every single guest is in the hall where our narrator insists the adults were trapped.

I enjoyed the Classical inferences, but felt that they could have been much better embedded in the story itself, rather than presenting each portrait of a Classical woman as an "interlude". The conversations that Rose, the main character, has with her three favourites - Freddie, Nessa, and Daisy - were by far the best element of the book. I really loved the characters of Freddie, Nessa, and Daisy, and felt that this story would have been better told through their eyes. Most other characters felt quite fragmentary and two dimensional. These three girls, however, were handled well, with a good blend of sympathy and honesty towards their characters.

I have to admit that I'm disappointed that this is one of Quercus' hero/flagship publications for 2021. It feels significantly behind the times, and erroneously lacking in nuance, especially considering the very difficult central theme of child grooming and abuse. I may have been slightly more receptive to the book if it hadn't been lauded so much.

With all the makings of a classic gothic novel, Phoebe Wynne’s MADAM definitely didn’t fail to impress! Following a young Classics teacher and her move to a new private school in Scotland, this book is full of the trials and tribulations of being a stranger in a new place... 📚
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Wynne’s protagonist, Rose, is headstrong, and curious about her new surroundings. As gruesome mysteries start to unfold around her, the truth about her new job begins to creep in.💔
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I thoroughly enjoyed this novel and can’t wait to receive my hard copy in February when the book will be published in the UK! 💚

A gripping chilling read which was horrifyingly uncomfortable in part.  
I think there was just about the right balance of greek mythology mixed in with the 'story' so it didn't dominate but instead provided a backdrop for change.

There was much to enjoy here, but I found I couldn't connect with it. I'd read more from this author in the future though.

There is something utterly claustrophobic and unsettling about this novel. Rose is a teacher with experience in state schools, and is offered a job in a girls-only boarding school in Scotland - Caldonbrae. It’s prestigious, one of the top schools in the country, and boasts excellent prospects for the girls who are educated there.

Despite being set in the early nineties, Rose seems to be transported into the late 1800s as soon as she sets foot in Caldonbrae. Antiquated ideas and dialogue, an odd feeling of submission, and a lack of independence for all permeates the walls. Tradition must be adhered to, modern progressions are ignored entirely, and the girls seem to be heavily indoctrinated into the system. Rose soon finds that leaving the school, even to visit the nearby village, is frowned upon, alongside her more ‘modern’ ideas for the girls’ advancement in their careers and lifestyles. Feelings of imprisonment soon creep in, and small hints as to the true nature of the school create unbridled feelings of tension.

I was swept along with the mysteries of this archaic school and its belief systems, but I did find the pace and structure to be slightly slow and jarring. Wynne flips around in her narrative regularly, with some sections seeming to be quite irrelevant. There’s a lot of moments of Rose pondering the same things continuously, or walking in moody weather with no real crux to the thing.

The characters, particularly the students, seemed a bit one-dimensional, but I am prepared to put that down to how the school was trying to model them into perfection. Of course, Rose was placed there by Wynne as a conflict, to rise up against the moral problem, but there was no real explanation to why the school had chosen her, despite closeted reasons being hinted at. If there are secrets to be kept, why recruit a young independent thinker who has a high likelihood of attempting to overthrow the whole thing?

Nonetheless, this is a great read for uncovering a mystery. There’s a real creeping dread throughout all of Wynne’s prose, and her cloak and dagger narrative was very well executed. A really disconcerting idea that all is not as it seems in boarding schools, or indeed, anywhere.

This was an ambitious and interesting idea for a book, I did think the author could have gone further though and really tested Rose with even more extraordinary and abominable lessons for the girls! 
It was a bit of a slow-burn and took a little too long for Rose to realise what was going on - especially as the reader knew long before she did! So that was a little frustrating. Plus the narration was a little uneven, moving from scenes/days quite quickly and sometimes even tenses. Also the setting of the 1990s didn't work for me, it felt far older and could have been set easier in the 50s or 60s maybe? 
But I did enjoy it and looked forward to reading every night.