Killingly
by Katharine Beutner
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Pub Date 8 Jun 2023 | Archive Date 9 Jun 2023
Atlantic Books | Corvus
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Description
A haunting, gothic, turn-of-the-century campus thriller about female desire, rage and ambition in the face of convention and control, perfect for fans of Camilla Bruce, Stacey Halls, Laura Purcell and Bridget Collins.
The young women at Mount Holyoke College are famed for their beauty and virtue - except for Agnes and Bertha. With their strange dresses, scholarly pursuits and intimate friendship, these two students are considered peculiar.
One autumn morning, Bertha vanishes, leaving Agnes to wander the cold university halls alone.
As a search team dredges the pond where Bertha might have drowned, an investigation into her disappearance begins. Agnes might know the truth, but she is being unhelpfully tight-lipped, inciting the suspicions of Bertha's family, the students at Mount Holyoke, and the detective hired for the case. As secrets from Bertha and Agnes's lives begin to surface, so do the competing agendas driving each person who is searching for her.
What happened to Bertha? Who would want to hurt her? And could she still be alive?
Advance Praise
‘KILLINGLY moves deliberately, achingly, through one young woman's disappearance in 1897. Out of the real-life facts of the case, Katharine Beutner makes extraordinary fiction, pushing against the limits of her characters' situations and propelling us to the heights of their ambitions. Beutner's novel is able to discover an answer to Bertha Mellish's mystery. Now, more than ever, we need to know the truth this story reveals’
Julia Phillips
‘Katharine Beutner has spun a lost scrap of history into a campus mystery novel set in the late 1800s, when an elite women's college is consumed by the search for a missing student... A story of women who defy strict rules, Killingly is a gripping novel of intrigue and surprising twists’
Kate Manning
‘This is a superb novel, suffused with dread, riddled with covert motivations and desires, reckoning with painful secrets, artfully rendering the myriad facets of this mysterious case while bearing witness to the sacrifices many women have made to live-and die-authentically’
Elizabeth McKenzie
Available Editions
| EDITION | Hardcover |
| ISBN | 9781838959227 |
| PRICE | £14.99 (GBP) |
| PAGES | 368 |
Available on NetGalley
Featured Reviews
Lauren A, Reviewer
Killingly by Katharine Beutner
Publication Date 8th June 2023
Killingly tells the compelling story of Bertha Mellish, a student at all girls Mount Holyoke college who disappears without trace in the late 1800s.
The daughter of Reverend John Mellish and Sarah Mellish who suffers from a mental illness, Bertha goes missing from the college, and the search for her immediately commences. The family physician, Dr Hammond, is appointed to try and help locate Bertha. Her sister Florence will not give up hope either. But her best friend Agnes, with whom Bertha has an intense, intimate friendship as they are both very different from the other girls at the college is not helpful to the investigation.
The plot is a slow burn, the dark and unsettling atmosphere building as we learn more and more as the search for Bertha continues, with shocking revelations and plot twists as the pieces start to come together. I was transported back in time, and found myself completely absorbed. There's tendrils of suspicion cast over everyone.
Mainly told from Florence and Agnes view point, the characters are well developed and multi layered, with full back stories, provoking a visceral dislike of certain characters and compassion and empathy for others.
Ultimately, Killingly is a tale of a mothers love and sacrifice and unwavering kinship between female friends in the face of adversity and misogyny. This is an emotional read from start to finish. The portrayal of what life was like for women during that time period was anger inducing "It seemed that every family, every woman, had a story that began with a man who took what he wanted."
I really enjoyed this wonderful book and would happily recommend.
Thank you to Atlantic Books for an ARC in exchange for a honest review.
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