There's quite a big reveal in the opening pages of this novel, and so I assumed that there must be some huge twist coming later. I read on with this in mind... The premise is great: scholarship girl Greer and a couple of other misfits at her posh boarding school (the rich girl from 'new money', the foreign prince) are invited to spend the weekend with the most envied clique - the Medievals. She smells a rat but fancies head Medieval Henry so, against her every instinct (of course) she decides to go. Activities include huntin', shootin' and fishin' (in the author's words - repeated so often it did get a little annoying) and you know then that it won't just be the poor animals who need to watch out.
Knowing that a character dies almost from the very start, and that Greer feels responsible, I was expecting nastiness and violence. Overall, it doesn't get too gory. Most of the nasty stuff happens 'off-screen' when Greer isn't there, so she can only describe the aftermath. This stops it becoming too gratuitous. Overall, the plot is pretty good and I was satisfied right up until around twenty pages from the end. I would have been happy for the novel to end there but it keeps going for a few more chapters after Greer returns to school. While there is another big reveal, it gets ruined by Greer being monumentally unobservant for an entire year it seems, and only realising at the last moment what is actually going on. There is then a strange cliffhanger ending which annoyed me - I don't think that the author is hinting at a sequel and so it could have been tied up a little less clumsily. Without this disappointing ending I would probably have given the book four stars.
Knowing that a character dies almost from the very start, and that Greer feels responsible, I was expecting nastiness and violence. Overall, it doesn't get too gory. Most of the nasty stuff happens 'off-screen' when Greer isn't there, so she can only describe the aftermath. This stops it becoming too gratuitous. Overall, the plot is pretty good and I was satisfied right up until around twenty pages from the end. I would have been happy for the novel to end there but it keeps going for a few more chapters after Greer returns to school. While there is another big reveal, it gets ruined by Greer being monumentally unobservant for an entire year it seems, and only realising at the last moment what is actually going on. There is then a strange cliffhanger ending which annoyed me - I don't think that the author is hinting at a sequel and so it could have been tied up a little less clumsily. Without this disappointing ending I would probably have given the book four stars.