Reader, I Murdered Him
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4.0 • 2 Ratings
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- $6.99
Publisher Description
In this daring tale of female agency and revenge from a New York Times bestselling author, a girl becomes a teenage vigilante who roams Victorian England using her privilege and power to punish her friends’ abusive suitors and keep other young women safe.
Adele grew up in the shadows—first watching from backstage at her mother’s Parisian dance halls, then wandering around the gloomy, haunted rooms of her father’s manor. When she’s finally sent away to boarding school in London, she’s happy to enter the brightly lit world of society girls and their wealthy suitors.
Yet there are shadows there, too. Many of the men that try to charm Adele’s new friends do so with dark intentions. After a violent assault, she turns to a roguish young con woman for help. Together, they become vigilantes meting out justice. But can Adele save herself from the same fate as those she protects?
With a queer romance at its heart, this lush historical thriller offers readers an irresistible mix of vengeance and empowerment.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Cornwell (The Circus Rose) reimagines the life of Jane Eyre character Adèle Varens as a queer vigilante in this empowering feminist thriller. Adèle is nine when Mr. Rochester, purportedly her father, whisks her away to England from the French brothel where she previously lived with her sex worker mother. Raised to be wary of men, Adèle is attuned to the possibility and frequency of male violence; she sympathizes with Mr. Rochester's first wife, Bertha, whom he keeps locked in the attic, and becomes concerned by the feelings that her governess, Jane Eyre, develops for him. Following Jane and Mr. Rochester's marriage, Adèle, now 15, is sent to Webster School for Young Ladies, where her mistrust of men grows as she discovers an even more abusive underbelly of English society. She soon becomes romantically entangled with Nan, a charming London thief, and begins her career as a vigilante, fending off violent men to protect her newfound friends. Cornwell's deep-rooted understanding of the inspiration material, paired with Adèle's characterization as a courageous and cunning protagonist, makes for an enthralling examination of justice, revenge, and romance. Main characters read as white. Ages 14–up.
