The accents killed me

The story is good but the accents, oh my god.

It does get better once we get into the school portion but up until then I cringed every time the main character spoke

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6 people found this helpful

A resourceful heroine

It's a bit of a shame that a novel set in England has quite so many Americanisms in it, and some of the accents are just downright weird, but there's a great deal of charm about it too. Magical schools are two a penny these days, but Miss Castwell's is no Hogwarts. Sarah is a resourceful student, finding her feet in a society she hasn't grown up in, negotiating pitfalls and dealing with powers she hadn't known she had. But schoolgirls, young ladies of quality or not, can be cruel, and hiding her secrets will take all her ingenuity.

Despite a little clumsiness in the writing - it's entirely possible to avoid archaisms while also eschewing modern words and phrases which would have been regarded as vulgar by characters in this vaguely Victorian setting - there's much to enjoy here, and I am already looking forward to the sequel.

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feel good story

I love Molly Harper's adult books and liked this one just as much. Initially the slightly mad accents put me off, but I soon stopper noticing it.

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Incredible as always

Molly Harper is a fantastic writer, and Amanda Ronconi’s talent is incredible. Combined, they are a recipe for success. Highly recommend

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promising start to new series (apart from accents)

I really appreciate the narrators effort but 'Northern' english accents slid between Scouse, Welsh, Scottish, irish and a bit of dick van dyke but once Sarah/Cassandra went to school it was much easier to listen to. Good start to a new series.

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7 people found this helpful

Persevere with the narrator

I know the English accents are a bit dodgy but if you keep on going you don’t notice it anymore and the story takes over.

It’s worth it.

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I didn't expect this

This book wasnt what I expected. I found it reminiscent of April White's books. I really enjoyed it. I hope there's more.

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Sucked into this world!

Very much enjoyed the story and the implicit introduction of social structure etc. it all meshed very nicely. Very interesting take on magic and power as metaphors for class, poverty etc. Despite some geographical clues I have absolutely no idea what regional accents the narrator was aiming for. Indeed a wandering minstrel could not have accumulated so many! The accents changed part way through sentences. Not the first book written by an American and set in England but with American English. But I absolutely loved the story and characters so I can almost overlook these issues. So happy to have found a new series to enjoy.

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Brilliant!!

I really enjoyed this. It was a great start to a promising new series. It was a somewhat different style for Molly Harper but very good! I look forward to the next in the series.

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Thoroughly enjoyable, can't wait for more

A new departure for Molly Harper into a parallel version of 19th Century England where the world is divided into Guardians (magic users) and their non-magic Snipe servants. Also more explicitly Young Adult fiction than her other books, but equally enjoyable by Older Young Adults.

Sarah is a young Snipe girl who turns out to have magical powers. The story of how she manages her transition into the Guardian world, and in particular Miss Castwell's Institute for the Magical Instruction of Young Ladies, is highly engaging from start to finish.

The parallels to Hogwarts are obvious, but nicely turned on their heads. The muggles in this story are not the dominant culture but a suppressed underclass. The family which Sarah leaves are for the most part the opposite of the Dursleys - loving, unwilling to lose her and helpless.

Great story, lively and likeable characters and a very intriguing universe for future adventures.

Amanda Ronconi is such a great reader that even her wavering British regional accents for the Snipe characters (which somehow manage to drift between Yorkshire, Northumberland and parts of Scotland) must be forgiven. She narrates the rest in a fairly good BBC accent, which is quite a feat in the circumstances, and fairly soon i was too caught up in the story to worry about it. And maybe in that parallel universe that is precisely how they speak!

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7 people found this helpful