“A lady stays tranquil and poised under all circumstances. Instead of panicking, she squares her jaw, protects her heart, and ensures that she has enough ammunition to gun down everyone in her path.”

How much mischief can Victorian noble ladies get up to in a matter of days? Well, brace yourselves, you’re about to find out.

Cecilia Bassingthwaite lives with her aunt, Miss Darlington and their housemaid Pleasance. They spend their days drinking tea, reading classical literature and flying their house across England stealing all manner of things from clothes to priceless jewellery. You see Miss Darlington and Cecilia are part of the Wisteria Society of lady pirates, adept in firing cannons and pistols, thievery, assassinations and generally being miscreants but being rather polite whilst doing so. These are ladies who have a reputation to uphold after all. Cecilia wishes for nothing more than to become a senior society member, and when the mysterious Ned Lightbourne comes to assassinate her, she thinks her chance has come at last, for surely if she is worthy of assassination she’s important enough to be promoted. Yet Ned’s employee is the infamous Morvath, a man who even Ned does not like, a man who thinks he’s a renowned poet, a man who bears a deep hatred for the Wisteria Society and women in general. When he drugs their tea and kidnaps them all it is down to Cecilia to rescue them, reluctantly with the help of Ned. 

The Wisteria Society of Lady Scoundrels by India Holton is one of the best piratical, adventurous fantasy of manners mash-up I’ve come across. This is a tale of women subverting the patriarchy in the most entertaining of ways. 

Cecilia has spent her entire life amongst the society members, they have raised her, nurtured her skills in swordplay, the arts of pick-pocketing, dagger throwing, stealth and how to be a respectable lady. They have all played a part in providing her the proper education a lady of her station should receive—sure they may all plot against each other from time to time, but that does not mean they don’t all share a special bond. Every single character in this novel has their quirks and Holton presents to us a variety of female characters from mothers, aunts and grandmothers to young maidens. I particularly loved the way Miss Darlington is the overprotective hypochondriac aunt to Cecilia, who in turn is the feisty, dagger loving niece and they both even share a slight fondness for Lady Armitage who has a thing for poisons and is on a mission to assassinate the two former ladies. You see, things amongst the society are a little messed up, but that’s exactly what makes it so much fun.

“We have only three laws in our Society, Cecilia. No killing civilians. Pour the tea before the milk. And no stealing each other’s houses.

Anyone breaking those laws is cast out literally, and in most cases from a very significant height.”

The tone is consistently melodramatic throughout yet at no point did I feel it was too much. In  fact, Holton uses this melodrama excellently to convey humour. I loved that these are high class ladies who will sip tea, nibble on scones and pleasantly discuss the weather one minute and pull pistols in your face, steal anything of value, and plan several ways to murder you the next! Even the ways they would murder you would have to follow decorum, for example they couldn’t possibly stab you where your blood might leave stains on a rather pretty looking rug, or heaven forbid murder you in the bushes, that would just be too unseemly. These ladies create wonderful chaos wherever they go and you cannot help but be drawn in by the bizarreness of it all. 

Holton does a fantastic job of balancing between these distinct charismatic characters with whimsical worldbuilding. Going into this novel, I did not expect a world where houses are not only able to fly, but are fully loaded with cannons and explosives. The imagery of this alone delighted me, imagine being in the comfort of your own home, sitting in a well cushioned armchair, as you fly your way to any destination you desire, and if you meet a bit of resistance along the way, no problem at all, just shoot them right out of the sky. Ok, in fairness navigation is a little bit tricky, even with an education at a training school which all young Wisteria members are required to attend, and you may not land exactly where you mean to, but hey it’s still better than our means of transportation! I loved that Holton included the history of such an incantation and the way it was stumbled upon was extremely amusing. I also appreciated that using the incantation is not just limited to making houses fly, castles, cathedrals and even gothic Abbey’s, such as the one Morvath flies, can be spelled to be airborne too.

“She was delicate, and dangerous, and the fact that he was completely seduced by it was going to make things very difficult indeed when the time came to throw her into jail.

Or out of a high window.

Whichever came first.”

If all that wasn’t crazy enough, wait until you delve deeper into the plot which consequently treats its readers to a dash of romance along the way. Firstly though, we have to appreciate the nods to classical authors, particularly the Brontë family. As Cecilia secretly reads Wuthering Heights and Morvath believes his poetry “skills” come from Branwell Brontë, Holton uses tongue in cheek humour to cleverly mock her villain. Which is punctuated by Ned Lightbourne all the way through with his hilarious interactions with Morvath. In contrast to Morvath, Ned is far more charming, cheeky, ambiguous and a bit of a flirt, which all becomes a problem when he meets Cecilia—you know the one he’s supposed to kill or capture. I loved, loved, loved the way these two characters bantered with each other, how their closeness slowly grew and how they simultaneously daydreamed about kissing one another and stabbing one another—this is my kind romance!

Holton delivers the perfect light, fluffy, amusing and extremely chaotic story to become lost within. When reaching the end of this novel I was fully ready to join the Wisteria Society of Lady Scoundrels (no seriously, where do I sign up?) and I’m so glad there are two more tales to discover in the Dangerous Damsels trilogy. The next instalment sees us meeting witches and I’m sure they’ll cause a whole load of mayhem. For now though, tally ho!

The Wisteria Society of Lady Scoundrels is available now, you can order your copy on Bookshop.org