A Great and Terrible Beauty

A GREAT AND TERRIBLE BEAUTY: Libba Bray: Delacorte Press: 2004: 403 pages

Growing up in British ruled India in the late 1800s, Gemma Doyle has longed to visit London. When her mother dies mysteriously, something that Gemma witnesses in a dark vision, she is finally sent to London where she is enrolled in a secluded girls’ finishing school. Gemma encounters trouble at the new school with the rich and popular girls and is frightened over her growing visions. She also discovers she has been followed from India by Kartik, a young Indian man who warns her to fight off her visions. Gemma has difficulty controlling them and one night she is led by a child-spirit to find a diary that reveals the secrets of a mystical realm.

Part Gothic mystery, part teen school drama and part other-worldly fantasy, this novel will delight a variety of readers and leave them wanting to know more about Gemma and her strange powers.

AJ