Book Review: Lisa Lutz's The Swallows

Thank you to Random House Publishing Group and Ballantine Books for providing me with a copy of Lisa Lutz’s novel, The Swallows, in exchange for an honest review.

Shortly after joining the faculty of Stonebridge Academy, an elite boarding school, creative writing professor Alexandra Witt, begins to notice that dark secrets are being kept amongst the students. The faculty turns a blind-eye out of fear and the professor whom Alexandra had been hired to replaced left under mysterious circumstances. Despite several warnings, Alexandra is determined to reveal the truth.

I’m drawn to stories that take place at boarding schools. I’ve always loved going to school and ever since I was a young child, I had romantic ideas of what it would be like to attend a boarding school. The setting for The Swallows does not disappoint. The campus is lush and the students are privileged. Lutz explores the “Upstairs/Downstairs” aspect of showing perspectives from both the wealthy students and the mostly average-means faculty. These are kids accustomed to power via the privilege that comes with wealth.

The Swallows is both a mystery and suspense novel, but it is also a commentary on our times with the “Me Too” movement. At Stonebridge Academy, there is a strong hierarchy of popular students, which includes a fluid ranking of the top male and female students, but within this group, the boys have their own club. Within this “boys club",” they use their influence against the girls by creating a secret, sex driven ranking system. Alexandra is the type of teacher who easily bonds with teenagers and as she learns what the boys are doing, she uses her influence to help the girls stand-up for themselves. However, it is not as simple as pointing out the wrongs, the girls want revenge for their humiliation.

One of the more interesting twists comes from a student who begins a nightly ritual across campus. Her silent walks with a loud scream at the end, pick-up steam and soon she has begun an entire movement. She never speaks to the meaning of her ritual and others assume that it is in response to her having been raped or assaulted. She never confirms or denies the reason and her actions explode in popularity, attracting the attention of the national news. This situation blurs the lines between reality and the way society likes to attach meaning to situations, regardless of the truth. She becomes a symbol of a movement, simply because her actions seem like they reflect the pain of a woman who has been harmed by men.

Although there are intriguing aspects to The Swallows, I didn’t find myself completely gelling with the story. It was uneven in pacing and I found a lot of it to reek of “shock value,” in a way that made it hard for me to believe or connect. I didn’t entirely dislike The Swallows, but it was a solid 3 out of 5 for me. The most interesting aspect is the ways that the various characters use power to their advantage and this alone made it a worthwhile read.

Book Review- Lucinda Riley's The Royal Secret

Thank you to Atria Books for providing me with a copy of Lucinda Riley’s novel, The Royal Secret, in exchange for an honest review.

Reporter Joanna Haslam is tired of being assigned puff-pieces, but her life changes when she is assigned to cover the funeral of veteran actor, Sir James Harrison. At the funeral, she meets a mysterious elderly woman, that sends Joanna on the path to uncovering a decades old scandal involving England’s royal family. As Joanna rushes to solve the mystery, she realizes that there are people willing to kill to keep their secrets hidden.

Riley’s The Royal Secret was actually written twenty years ago ( although she has made updates to this current version) and it was deemed so scandalous, that many booksellers in the UK would not carry it or promote it. This was the info that I received that enticed me to sign up for an Ark of The Royal Secret. It set my expectations high and I have to admit that The Royal Secret did not meet those expectations. I’m not quite sure why it was so shocking or scandalous. I am in my early forties, so I can easily remember back a few decades and it’s hard to imagine that anything in this story would have been reason for refusing to sell the book. That said, I live in the United States, not England, so I am viewing the story through a different cultural lens. Also, Riley’s book was originally published shortly after the death of Lady Diana, so perhaps that may have created a sensitivity regarding anything written about the royal family, fictional or otherwise. Riley’s royal family is completely fictional and she does not use the names of any actual monarchs. If there is any similarities between actual monarchs and her characters, I did not notice.

The Royal Secret is suspenseful from start to finish. It is filled with twists and turns, many of which I could not have anticipated. If anything, it was a bit much with all of the plot twists, especially in the last quarter of the story. The pacing really ramps up to a frenzy and I was overwhelmed with the speed of the information.

The characters are the best part of the story. I especially liked the romantic tension between Zoe Harrison, the granddaughter of Sir James Harrison, and her bodyguard, Simon. Zoe is in a relationship and Simon needs to maintain professionalism, yet there is a beautiful undercurrent of longing and passion between these two characters.

There is a second and equal love story thread between Joanna and Zoe’s brother, Marcus. This romance lacked the sweetness and passion of Zoe and Simon. I felt like Joanna and Marcus were a fling that carried on past its expiration date, yet as Joanna is our heroine, we readers should be engaged in her romantic plot line. I liked Joanna as a plucky reporter, however my primary emotional connection was with Zoe and Simon.

The story had too many coincidences to make it gel. For example, Joanna happens to be best friends with Simon, who happens to be placed on a top-secret assignment guarding Zoe. Through her investigation, Zoe develops a relationship with Marcus and is then introduced to Joanna, which is how she discovers that Simon is an agent; a big secret that she never knew about her best friend. Joanna and Marcus get intwined in this mystery in totally different ways, a mystery that would never have come to light if Joanna hadn’t happened to be sitting next to the elderly woman at the funeral. To push this further, this elderly woman, knowing that she is ill, decides to tell Joanna her biggest secret, but in a way that is still shrouded in mystery, putting Joanna in both professional and mortal jeopardy. Without giving away any major plot twists, The Royal Secret, is full of these chance encounters and people who happened to be in the right place, at the right time. (or the wrong place, at the wrong time) For a story that is built on imminent danger, several aspects of the story happened too conveniently.

I enjoyed the primary setting in the 1990’s and appreciated how the technology of the era was worked into the story. It would have played out very differently, if it had been set now. I also liked the way the story spanned several decades, playing with societal norms of different eras. Riley does a wonderful job of setting the scene and writing atmospheric descriptions.

Overall, The Royal Secret was not my cup of tea and I would not recommend it. This was my first time reading Riley and I would be inclined to seek out her other novels. I enjoyed her writing, but not the general plot of this particular story.