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    The Scandalous Sisterhood of Prickwillow Place
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    The Scandalous Sisterhood of Prickwillow Place
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    The Scandalous Sisterhood of Prickwillow Place
    Ebook327 pages5 hours

    The Scandalous Sisterhood of Prickwillow Place

    By Julie Berry

    4/5

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    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    There's a murderer on the loose—but that doesn't stop the girls of St. Etheldreda's from attempting to hide the death of their headmistress in this rollicking farce.
    The students of St. Etheldreda's School for Girls face a bothersome dilemma. Their irascible headmistress, Mrs. Plackett, and her surly brother, Mr. Godding, have been most inconveniently poisoned at Sunday dinner. Now the school will almost certainly be closed and the girls sent home—unless these seven very proper young ladies can hide the murders and convince their neighbors that nothing is wrong.

    Julie Berry's The Scandalous Sisterhood of Prickwillow Place is a smart, hilarious Victorian romp, full of outrageous plot twists, mistaken identities, and mysterious happenings.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMacmillan Publishers
    Release dateSep 23, 2014
    ISBN9781596439573
    Unavailable
    The Scandalous Sisterhood of Prickwillow Place
    Author

    Julie Berry

    Julie Berry grew up on a farm in western New York as the youngest of a family of seven book-loving kids. She now lives in eastern Massachusetts with her husband, four young sons, and two cats. She is the author of six critically acclaimed books for young readers. All the Truth That’s in Me is her first novel for teens and adults. Visit her at julieberrybooks.com

    Read more from Julie Berry

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    Reviews for The Scandalous Sisterhood of Prickwillow Place

    4/5

    37 ratings25 reviews

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    • 4/5
      When their unpleasant headmistress and her dreadful brother drop dead at dinner one night, the girls of St Etheldreda's School for Girls find themselves in a bit of a pickle. Calling the police would mean they would all get sent home to their unhappy family lives, so they decide to cover it up and bury the bodies in the backyard. It turns into a bit of a farce after that, but then reins itself back into the more serious subjects of the fact that these were actual human beings with friends and histories, while still managing to remain fairly entertaining. I appreciated that each girl had an adjective - Disgraceful Mary Jane, Dull Martha, Smooth Kitty, etc. - that helped keep them all straight. All in all a fun little story.
    • 4/5
      The audiobook is an absolute delight!
    • 4/5
      “Each Sunday afternoon at Saint Etheldreda’s School for Young Ladies on Pickwillow Road in Ely, Cambridgeshire, the seven enrolled young ladies were invited by custom to join Headmistress Constance Plackett while she entertained her younger brother, Mr. Aldous Godding at the dinner table.” One Sunday in 1890, the regular custom was unexpectedly upset, when the veal consumed by the penny-pinching Mrs. Plackett and the rude and reckless Mr. Godding (as customary, none was provided for the students) had been poisoned and they both fell dead on the dining room floor. Although the enrolled young ladies had no particular fondness for the recently deceased; they do consider themselves to be the sisters that their parents had not provided for them. So Smooth Kitty Heaton proposes a plan to keep them together. They won’t tell anyone about the deaths, and stay in school under their own governance. The other girls agree, but this leaves them with two perplexing questions. Who is the poisoner? And what shall we do with the bodies? Witty, playful and filled with suspense and the thrill of detection, Berry’s carefully researched Victorian mystery is wonderfully read by Entwistle, whose narration won the recorded version an Odyssey honor.
    • 3/5
      Read by Jayne Entwistle. It's a little tricky on audio to keep track of all seven girls but stick with it and Entwistle brings out each girl's distinct personality with a light British accent. Smooth Kitty and Disgraceful Mary Jane are the natural leaders of the group and the most memorable. The mystery opens immediately with the keeling over of bodies followed by the girls' seemingly heartless plan to conceal the deaths, so this isn't a book for younger children or squeamish souls. Share this with kids who enjoy bit of dark humor in their literature.
    • 3/5
      When their headmistress and her odious brother die suddenly, apparently of poison, the 7 students of St. Etheldreda's School for Young Ladies plot how they can stay on at the school together while trying to identify the murderer.
    • 3/5
      Very original, but quite dark. Not sure it's the best choice for children, just because of all the murders and poison and other dark topics.

      It's a very well written book, with individual characters, and a good read. The first half drags a bit in spots, but the second half moves fast. Very original and intriguing.
    • 3/5
      "Seven very proper Victorian young ladies conspire to hide a murder from the authorities at their boarding school"-- Provided by publisher.
    • 3/5
      The students at St. Etheldreda's School are surprised one Sunday evening when their head mistress and her brother drop dead at dinner. They quickly come to the conclusion that they will all be sent home soon when the truth is discovered, so decide to hide that truth instead. Before they can even bury the bodies though, pesky townspeople, including the doctor, start arriving to celebrate a birthday for Mr. Godding and one even turns her ankle and decides to stay the night sharing a bed with head mistress Constance Placket! The comedy of errors continues as the girlssomehow carry through with their dark plan to bury the bodies in the garden, impersonate the head mistress and make everything look like "business as normal" while trying to figure out who committed the murders and avoiding all danger to their own persons. This conspiracy story is a mystery with humor and romance and death all wrapped up into one. Female readers of Sherlock Holmes will probably be the ones who will appreciate this book the most. Appropriate for grades 609. 351 pages.
    • 2/5
      First of all, I love this cover. It is beautiful and I think that is why I had such high hopes for this book. I know - don't judge a book by its cover - well I did, and now I am sad...I started reading The Scandalous Sisterhood in bed one night and got about 100 pages into it. I was interested in the girls and their background, scheming, the murder and what was to come in the pages of this beautiful book, but I could not get into it again after those first pages.I tried again with an audiobook version read by Jayne Entwistle and she was a wonderful reader. The voices of each girl were distinct and easy to identify with so many female characters and her English accent really added to the girls/ setting/ story. Sadly even after listening to it for an hour I wasn't as enthralled as I had hoped to be. The writing style just made for an overall choppy sounds story. All of the ---- said, then ---- said and back and forth between the girls started getting to me. I wanted more plot and faster. It just seemed to drag on.The original theme, the mockery of the death of the headmistress was wonderful and hilarious, but there was only so much of that I could take before I wanted more from the story. I guess this absurdity was not for me.
    • 4/5
      If you can overlook the unbelievable premise, you may enjoy Jayne Entwistle's entertaining narration of Julie Berry's Victorian romp of a story involving a group of "scandalous" girls at a home-based school under the tutelage of prickly Mrs. Plackett. Each girl is identified by a defining characteristic - Smooth Kitty who begins the charade with a cunning scheme, Disgraceful Mary Jane who has yet to meet a boy with which she wouldn't flirt to gain some advantage, Dull Martha who is mostly clueless throughout the story, and so on. The girls are each unique in her own way and bring their own talents to the murder mystery. Pure fun.
    • 4/5
      I bought this purely on a whim, simply because the cover was all neo-Victorian mystery and charm. There was a teacup involved, after all. So, with no expectations at all, I was open to the fizzy fun of the story, which spins a little of Agatha Christie in with a dose of Victorian school novel and flavors it with the ridiculous, sometimes to the point of absurdity. The plot centers on seven distinctly characterized boarding school girls -- so distinct, in fact, that the author bestows on each of them a specific epithet (Smooth, Dear, Dour, etc.) to precede the first name each time the narrator mentions a girl, a twitch that starts out precious but quickly gets old -- who see their school-mistress and her brother killed. Rather than calling the police, the young ladies see an opportunity for freedom, and so proceed to lying, burying bodies in the garden, tracking down the murderer(s), shopping for necessities, and otherwise running their own school while pretending nothing at all is awry. You might guess where all the fun parts come from -- this "sisterhood" is pretty darn entertaining as they go about getting their hands literally and metaphorically dirty. The mystery itself has a somewhat sudden resolution and the consequent situations for each girl are clearly contrived, some bordering on trite, but the package as a whole is just the sort of quirky amusement that any fan of the more traditional Victorian girls novel will find well worth the read. The inside jokes and pokes at both the literature and attitude of the older age are fun to find, and each send-up of a character is more of a delight than the last. For younger readers, there is also a timely message about sisterhood and the agency of women -- most of the characters are female and very few are cowed by what we think of as the limitations of the time (though several of the ladies have heads easily turned by the cute boys of the neighborhood). I'm not saying this is the brilliant apex of modern feminist literature, but it manages to be a droll while-away of a couple of hours whilst poking rather delicious fun at the gender roles and familiar tales it's aping, so you could do much worse. Also, there is tea.
    • 4/5
      Do you ever watch shows where someone dies, and the people around them seem to get over that death a little too quickly? Like, wow, someone just died, and you're fine? That is essentially this book. The headmistress of a small finishing school and her brother die within the first five pages - and because the girls don't want to go home, they decide to hide this fact from everyone in town. This is a bit of an unrealistic premise, but I was hooked by this point. Almost for that reason. Anyway, seven girls, two dead people and the doorbell rings. We don't know who killed them, why, or what to do. So let the games begin. It's a fun story, completely ridiculous, but well written and enjoyable. There's no easily defined main character, just some who seem to get more screen time. I particularly liked how different everyone's personalities were; some authors struggle giving two or three characters unique personalities, Berry tried her hand with seven and was mostly successful. Sometimes it felt like the girls were interchangeable, but not often. I enjoyed the way that the world of the girls was completely intact; we have to read the pages before the story to know each girls' back-story.On the whole, it's a scandalous book. It's fun, it's confusing, and the end wraps up into a neat little bow with no horrible consequences. It's fun.
    • 5/5
      The seven students at St. Ethelreda's School for Young Ladies have little in common, but one thing they all agree on is that they don't care much for their headmistress Constance Plackett, and even less for her oily brother Aldous Golding. So, when both headmistress and brother drop dead over Sunday dinner, the girls mostly feel a mild regret that they will be split up -- for, despite their differences, they all get along quite well together. And then, they hit upon an idea: what if they were to bury the corpses in the back garden and just . . . carry on? Of course, this plan doesn't take into account Mr. Golding's surprise birthday party, or the visit from Mrs. Plackett's solicitor, or the Strawberry Social. Not to mention that it's hardly coincidence that both Mrs. Plackett and Mr. Golding dropped dead at the same meal. Poison was almost certainly involved, but who administered it? Was it Disgraceful Mary Jane Marshall, seeing a way to escape the strictures of boarding school life? Smooth Kitty Heaton, who proves to be such a competent organizer when Mrs. Plackett is out of the way? Dour Elinor Siever, with her unhealthy fascination with death? Or was it someone from outside the school? Who could it be -- and why?This book is a delightful romp. I had so much fun reading it. I particularly enjoyed how the author differentiated the girls by using their adjectives (i.e. Disgraceful Mary Jane, not just Mary Jane) throughout -- that was by no means the sum of their characters, but it proved a useful method for keeping all of them straight in my head. The mystery was clever and by no means obvious, and the little romances were charming side-notes to the story. If this sounds like your sort of thing, you should give it a try!
    • 2/5
      not for me, but might be for you.Ok, by the end of the first chapter I was ready to toss it in. It wasn't that there were too many lead characters, their adjectival names or the situation they found themselves in, it just wasn't the level of 'farcical' I expected. Now, The "Importance of Being Ernest," that is farcical. I felt like I was reading a version of a "Lemony Snicket" novel for slightly older persons without quite the same witty repartee. I enjoyed "The Amaranth Enchantment" (not a farce) but the a Scandalous Sisterhood just wasn't doing it for me. Not to be put off, I read a few of the rave reviews on other sites and decided to persevere. Still not my cup of tea and really, I suspect the YA reading audience for this is fairly narrow. However, it's obvious that many did enjoy it, so read some more reviews and go from there.A NetGalley ARC
    • 3/5
      I got a copy of this to review through NetGalley. Previously I had read Julie Berry’s book the Amaranth Enchantment and really enjoyed it. This book was okay, but started out a bit slow.The young women at Etheldreda's School for Girls don’t know what to do when the headmistress Mrs. Plackett and brother, Mr. Godding, are found poisoned and dead after dinner one day. Smooth Kitty doesn’t want to leave the Girls school and her friends (none of the girls want to leave) and devises a plan. The girls will bury Mrs. Plackett and her brother in the backyard and Stout Alice will dress as Mrs. Plackett. That way no one will know their headmistress ever died and the girls can carry on as usual. Of course they also want to find out who the murderer is...and of course things go horribly wrong.This was an okay Victorian mystery type of young adult story. The writing flows decently and the mystery is cleverly put together. However, it takes a long time for the story to get going and there are a lot of characters here. It was a bit much to keep track of and the first part of the book was a bit of a drag for me. The second half of the book was much better. Things really start to happen quickly in the 2nd half and we know the characters better, so it’s easier to follow what’s going on. There are a lot of character to follow and all of their names have an adjective in front of them which was odd. I guess having the adjective in front of the name (Smooth Kitty, Dear Roberta, Dull Martha, Disgraceful Mary, Stout Alice, Pocked Louise, and Dour Elinor) helps you connect the character personality with the name. It’s a lot of characters to keep track of. The problem with this is that all the characters are very stereotypical and the only one we really get to know in any detail is Smooth Kitty.This is primarily a goofy Victorian mystery of sorts. It was mildly entertaining, but I did have quite a bit of trouble engaging with the story for the first half of the book. The whole things reads a bit like a game of Clue.Overall an okay young adult Victorian mystery. I enjoyed the way the plot was put together and the mystery behind it. I thought there were too many characters and had trouble engaging with them and following them all. I would tentatively recommend this book to those who enjoy Clue-like who-done-it Victorian mysteries.
    • 5/5
      I found this book to be entertaining and delightful. The characters are written with depth and the author stays true to their characters throughout.
    • 4/5
      I liked this light hearted read. I was especially fond of the authors notes at the end. It gave me a great appreciation for the characters of this books era. The girls were many and sometimes hard to keep track of. Nevertheless it was a nice visit of young adult reading for this old adult reader.
    • 4/5
      For more reviews, gifs, Cover Snark and more, visit A Reader of Fictions.The Scandalous Sisterhood of Prickwillow Place was the sort of middle grade novel I simply had to read. Mostly because I snicker every time I read the word “prickwillow” because I’m a very mature, grown up sort of person. Not to mention the fact that historical novels are fabulous and scandalous girls are generally pretty fun. Who wants non-scandalous heroines? If I want to read about boring girls who make boring choices, I could write a book about my childhood. The Scandalous Sisterhood of Prickwillow Place is every bit the “rollicking farce” promised in the book’s blurb, and it was an utter delight.Farces are not everyone’s tea and scones. Frankly, tea and scones are not my tea and scones. The Scandalous Sisterhood is utterly madcap and ridiculous. If you like things to be neat and orderly and realistic, this book will seem like a bit of silliness and be frustrating. Personally, I don’t so much mind my books not making a lick of sense so long as they’re doing so intentionally.The book opens with the death of the indomitable Mrs. Plackett and her brother, Mr. Godding. The girls of the school then decide that, rather than risk being sent to their various homes, they will pretend that nothing is amiss, so they bury them in the garden. It’s obvious from page one that this will not work out as planned, but it sets a hilarious romp in motion and I am all for it. Serious mysteries often fail to capture my attention, but I was totally on board for everything happening in The Scandalous Sisterhood.The characters, though not fully fleshed out, are more developed than the adjectives attached to their names might indicate. There’s more to Smooth Kitty than her smoothness, to Dull Martha than her lack of intelligence, to Disgraceful Mary Jane than her flirting. The character names are often said in conjunction with their adjective, and, though not my favorite aspect, it also did help keep the girls separate in my head. I think it also beautifully highlights the reasons that these girls have been shipped off to St. Etheldreda’s School for Girls by their families; they’ve been cast as one-dimensional and not worth keeping about. The course of the book shows how much more there is too them.The best surprise of The Scandalous Sisterhood was the shippiness. I totally do not expect a lot of shipping in my middle grade novels. Actually, I think The Scandalous Sisterhood sits on the border between middle grade and YA, and that YA readers should consider this too, even if they don’t generally do middle grade. Most of the girls get a ship of some sort. It’s also nice that not all of them sail, so it’s not a total pairing off. I think my favorite was the hilarious pairing of Dour Elinor with a young man who excels in the funerary arts. The romance isn’t the largest element, but I super appreciated it being there.I actually received a print ARC of The Scandalous Sisterhood as well, but, due to all the BEA books, I didn’t manage to get to it in time. Then I had the option of the audiobook, and I could not resist. This was a most excellent choice, though I’m positive the book is just as much fun in print. Jayne Entwhistle fulfills my three main qualifications for an excellent narrator: 1) she’s completely willing to be silly, 2) she does a fabulous job with voices, and 3) she’s British. This audiobook was such a pleasant way to pass the time.The Scandalous Sisterhood was the perfect bit of silliness. It’s been a long time since I read a farce, and it was so perfect for my mood.
    • 4/5
      Ah, how I do adore when a book seems like it won't be something I'll enjoy and then it snatches me up and proves me wrong! The Scandalous Sisterhood of Prickwillow Place did just that, and I couldn't be more pleased. Very much a Victorian farce, this is the story of seven young girls who suddenly find themselves in a rather unpleasant predicament. What follows contains murder, mystery, and plenty of witty banter. Delicious.

      It took me a while to warm up to the young ladies contained within this story. Each one has a very distinct personality which, as you might imagine, is very easy to remember when their name is preceded by an adjective to describe them. From "Disgraceful" Mary Jane, to "Smooth" Kitty, each one matches their description to a tee. So my big question was, at first, why did we need the addition? What was the point? I'll tell you though, it grew on me after a while. It added to the feeling of tongue in cheek humor, and after a while it didn't bother me anymore.

      On to the story, shall we? This reminded me a bit of the movie version of "Clue" in the way that it really didn't take itself seriously. I was given seven young women who, somehow, manage to cover up two deaths and pose rather well as though nothing is wrong. The twists thrown in were fabulous, the cast of supporting characters vibrant, and the clues perfection. I cracked up laughing more than once at the absurd entrances that possible suspects made. I loved that Julie Berry was able to write such a fun set of characters, each one perfectly fitting the space they filled.

      So, as you can see by my four star rating, I ended up enjoying this much more than I thought I would. The mixture of tongue in cheek humor, witty banter, and mystery wrapped me up and kept me reading. I'm so happy I gave this a shot! Much love to The Scandalous Sisterhood of Prickwillow Place.

      Note: This is shelved as Middle Grade Fiction but I highly doubt most readers that age would appreciate it. I'm shelving it as Young Adult Fiction instead.
    • 3/5
      A weird little mystery in the tradition of Snicket and Benedict, with rollicking and adventurous vocabulary and an endearing cast of heavily nicknamed girls.
    • 4/5
      I had no idea what I was getting myself into when I got this book from the library, but how could I resist a title like this? A scandalous sisterhood? Sign me up!

      It's listed under both YA and middle grade, which I felt was appropriate after listening to it.
      As mentioned before, I listened to this one, narrated by Jayne Entwistle. I hadn't had the time to read through the back cover when I chose it. I was going on a little roadtrip that was about two hours longer than the amount of time I had left on the book I was listening to at its start. I quickly found this wonderful title and downloaded it so I could start when the last one was over. To say that I was pleasantly surprised would be quite an understatement.

      The feel of the book was exactly what I expected when I saw the title but not the plot. We're given an introduction that includes how each girl ended up at the school, and that's when you know you will love this book or hate it. I knew I'd love it.

      I loved the way each girl at St Etheldreda's School for Girls was addressed; Stout Alice, Smooth Kitty, Disgraceful Mary Jane, Dear Roberta, Dull Martha, Pocked Louise and Dour Eleanor. The girls are resourceful and some are brilliant. As their descriptors indicate, each girl is wildly different from the others but they are sisterhood. They're friends despite being very different and though they get annoyed and irate with each other, they are still loyal friends. They appreciate their differences and even seem to enjoy them sometimes.

      What I didn't expect was a murder mystery. There was no way that this lot was not about to be entertaining, but there were some enjoyable little surprises and upsets as well. I had been enjoying the whole story and then was particularly pleased with the end and denouement.

      It's a great middle grade book and could be enjoyed by some young adults, but I do feel like there is a bit of an age threshold for it.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 2/5
      A ridiculous and silly story of mayhem around a girls school and its inhabitants. IT reminded me of another much more interesting book, but I can't remember the title. It's been a year or more. As for this one, stay away.
    • 3/5
      If the reader is looking for melodrama and Victorian high-jinks, this is the perfect story. The seven young women sent to St. Etheldreda's School for Girls are faced with a major problem when the school's headmistress and her disreputable brother die suddenly at Sunday dinner. Rather than reporting the deaths, the girls decide to bury them in the garden and keep the deaths quiet. This leads to all sorts of unforeseen consequences including what to do when guests assemble for a surprise birthday party for the brother. They begin and investigation when they learn that the two died of poison. There are all sorts of suspects ranging from the maid to an assortment of strangers who are suddenly paying attention to the girls. The girls have an interesting variety of character traits and names. Smooth Kitty is the ringleader and the daughter of a successful businessman who doesn't pay attention to her. Pocked Louise is the youngest and a keen scientist who takes charge of the investigation. Then there is Stout Alice who is quite an actress and who successfully impersonates the headmistress when the girls can't make excuses for her absence.The story has all sorts of over-the-top elements - murderers, lost wills, hidden wealth, romance - all in a Victorian setting. Fans of Lemony Snicket who are a bit older now will be the best audience for this romp.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 3/5
      I really enjoyed the mystery aspect of this story, and the girls. The author's note at the end was also nice because it gave some context for the time period and the details the author researched. The part that I liked least was the distinction of each girl by her trait (Dull Martha, Stout Alice, etc.), which happened over and over and over until I was drawn out of the story by my irritation. And weirdly I think it made them LESS individual than they might have been otherwise because I could always rely on the trait to tell me who a character was, so I never bothered to try and learn them separately on my own.
    • 3/5
      I love a good melodrama written as a novel.