A School for Unusual Girls
It’s 1814. Napoleon is exiled on Elba, Britain is at war on four fronts, and the beau monde still needs to marry off its daughters. But what to do with daughters who don’t fit high society’s constrictive mould, whose gifts, termed as “unusualness” by society, don’t make them marriageable material? Enter Stranje House run by Headmistress Emma Stranje, who assures frustrated parents that she will cure the unusualness out of their daughters but instead uses the girls’ intellect and gifts for dangerous spy or political missions.
This is the first book in the Stranje House series and introduces the first societal outcast, Georgiana Fitzwilliam, whose love of science has resulted in one catastrophe after another. Georgie is sent to Stranje House, where she meets the headmistress and the other outcast girls. Not knowing what’s in store for her, she tries to escape but soon discovers that her love of science, and her latest experiment to produce invisible ink, are desperately needed to keep Napoleon from regaining power and Britain from further conflicts. It doesn’t hurt that the young and handsome Lord Sebastian Wyatt will be helping Georgie to discover the formula.
A School for Unusual Girls is a story of adventure, suspense and romance, revolving around Georgie but introducing other smart, strong and sassy young women. The men are archetypal hunks: big, strong, smart, rich, sometimes brooding, and the perfect match or foil for the girls. This was a fun and engrossing story with sassy dialogue, lots of comic relief, and a sweet and ingénue heroine, who learns that her intellect and the abilities that set her apart from society are gifts to be reckoned with. I look forward to reading the other books in the series.
