Review by Booklist Review
In 1870s Montreal, Marie is sheltered and spoiled by her father, while Sadie thrives on disturbing her social-climbing parents. The girls are instantly enthralled with each other but forced apart after a childhood accident. In their time apart, Marie inherits her father's factory, wielding power without concern for the women she employs, especially Mary, who bears a striking resemblance to Marie. Meanwhile, Sadie is given safe haven by George, a gender-nonconforming midwife who propels Sadie's career as a pornographic author but is abruptly abandoned when Marie reappears. While Marie and Sadie are not untouched by abuse, once their relationship resumes, they are more interested in indulging their own pleasure than being the examples of liberated women they think they are. George becomes a vocal advocate for women's issues, but with the vindictive Mary, who would rather women reclaim power with violence, starts a chain of events that will have a long-lasting and far-reaching impact. O'Neill (The Lonely Hearts Hotel, 2017) uses evocative descriptions and near-constant tension to carry this dark almost-fairy-tale to an unexpected conclusion.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
A corrosive friendship between two powerful women has profound implications in this Victorian epic from O'Neill (The Lonely Hearts Hotel). In 1873, Montreal sugar factory heiress Marie Antoine and her intelligent, macabre friend Sadie Arnett accidentally kill Marie's maid Agatha during a pretend duel. Sadie's politically ambitious family then ships her off to a repressive school in England, where she discovers her calling in writing pornographic stories. Marie and Sadie reunite nine years later, but their friendship fizzles. Sadie moves into a brothel after her family discovers her writing, and Marie implements brutal cost-cutting measures at the plant following her father's death, sparking animosity from her half-sister, Agatha's illegitimate daughter Mary. George, a gender nonconforming midwife, shares Mary's outrage at Marie and hopes to cement a relationship with Sadie. After George publishes Sadie's erotica, which features thinly veiled versions of Marie, Marie bribes Sadie's way out of obscenity charges and the two women embark on a sexual relationship, until their lavish lifestyle and abuses of power make them targets in a class revolt. While the uprising subsumes the final act in an abrupt shift, O'Neill's sharp descriptions and her prose's archaic slant successfully immerse readers in the period. It's a little bumpy, but overall this distinctive, character-driven story is delightfully perverse. (Feb.)
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Review by Library Journal Review
At age 12, bubbly Marie Antoine rules over the children of the glittering 19th-century Montreal neighborhood called Golden Mile until sly-eyed, decidedly unbubbly Sadie Arnett moves in. The two girls bond obsessively yet remain a combustible, even dangerous mix, oscillating between closeness and absence into adulthood as Marie inherits her father's sugar empire and Sadie becomes absorbed in working-class revolution. From the author of the Orange Prize-nominated Lullabies for Little Criminals.
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
The all-consuming friendship of two upper-class girls in 19th-century Montreal. Marie Antoine and Sadie Arnett grow up in the Golden Mile, a wealthy neighborhood where Marie is the daughter of the richest man in the city while Sadie's family struggles to keep up appearances. Psychopathic Sadie easily manipulates the spoiled Marie Antoine. Sadie's mother recognizes this darkness in her daughter and abandons her to it: "Sadie would pretend to have feelings to get what she wanted. That was how manipulative Sadie was." The girls confide in each other, push the limits of acceptable behavior, and are "delighted by their indecency." Yet theirs isn't a loving friendship. They're competitive rivals: "Every decent friendship comes with a drop of hatred. But that hatred is like honey in the tea. It makes it addictive." When they accidentally murder a maid while pretending at a duel, Sadie is sent overseas. A strict boarding school shapes her identity, and her youthful perversions blossom. The first half of the book is a slow build, concentrating more on character development than action. Sadie returns from boarding school as an adult and takes up residence in a whorehouse in the Squalid Mile, a foil to the girls' upper-class neighborhood. Marie inherits her father's sugar factory and becomes a coldhearted boss. In its second half, the book takes on too many ideas without bringing them together. A plotline involving a trans character's search for identity is given surface-level treatment. Sadie releases a sadistic roman à clef about "the violent delight of female desire," and women across the city awaken to either their sexual power or their need for safe working conditions, but not both. Marie and Sadie lock themselves away from the world, while a pretender to Marie's throne plots her demise. Ideas about girl power, friendship, gender identity, class, sexual sadism, mistaken identity, and the dehumanizing nature of the Industrial Revolution compete for center stage in this overlong tale with a predictable twist ending. There are insightful observations about friendship, but disconnected ideas gum up the works. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
