S&S Book Club: Carol Goodman’s Blythewood
Tina and Jen chat about Tina’s pick: Carol Goodman’s Blythewood
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Why Tina Picked It
I chose Blythewood because I was the lucky moderator for a Young Sleuths panel at the Murderous March Conference, and the talented Carol Goodman was a panel participant. Blythewood is atmospheric and chock full of charm and charms. It is a coming of age story as well as a story of the ages. Not only is our heroine growing and evolving, but the world itself is on the brink of change. We discover that Avaline finds herself at the center of it all for a reason.
After narrowly escaping death in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, Avaline Hall is sent to the Blythewood Academy, the elite boarding school in New York's Hudson Valley that her mother attended and was expelled from. Here she suffers the usual pangs of adolescence: trying to fit in, petty rivalries, difficult classes and a burgeoning romance. But this is not just any boarding school - it is magical and a portal between worlds. To top it off, Avaline discovers she has powers she never imagined. As she navigates all of this, Avaline also hopes to solve the mystery of her mother’s death, and its connection to the students who keep disappearing from Blythewood.
This book is sensitive, charming and daring. It asks difficult questions and challenges us to think outside the box. It is Harry Potter meets The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.
What Jen Thought
Blythewood is not a book I would have picked up on my own. I’m not particularly drawn to the fantasy genre and boarding school stories don’t get my adrenaline pumping. But I’m so glad that Tina chose a book outside of the traditional mystery genre to stretch my thinking!
I immediately fell in love with Carol Goodman’s world building. She drops us into 1911 New York through the eyes of an underdog. Rather than the comfortable drawing rooms and elegant clothes of so many historical mysteries, Goodman’s main character has to support herself in one of the city’s sweatshops. Her fortunes change and she enters the world of a mysterious boarding school where she must learn the skills to save the world from evil.
Doesn’t sound like a mystery? It is. Blythewood is filled with all the questions mystery readers wrestle with, including the nature of evil, how witnesses can misinterpret the events they think they saw, and how a hero needs to learn to trust her own instincts to succeed.
This book was just the change of pace I was looking for, and I’m eager to see where the series goes next.
