Darkly Captivating: A Lesson in Vengeance by Victoria Lee
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Retreieved from VictoriaLeewrites.com. Cover art by Maggie Enterrios.
In A Lesson In Vengeance, Victoria Lee whisks readers away to the unattainable land of private boarding schools for the wealthy. Well, unattainable for the majority of readers, anyways.
But Dalloway School, where A Lesson in Vengeance takes place, is no ordinary boarding school. The famous girls’ school is also the location of a series of deaths over 200 years ago. The Dalloway Five, as they came to be known, were students rumoured to be witches. Whose dabbling with the arcane got them killed. Some even say they haunt the school itself to this very day.
Enter Felicity Morrow. She’d been obsessively researching the Dalloway Five for her senior year thesis until her long-time girlfriend, Alex, died unexpectedly. After more than a year away, she’s finally back, ready to continue her studies. But the occult calls to her, and the ghost of Alex hides behind every corner.
Felicity’s new roommate, Ellis Haley, doesn’t help matters. Brand new to Dalloway, she’s already a successful novelist, and her latest book tackles the Dalloway Five. Felicity finds herself wrapped up in Ellis’ research. However, she can’t shake the pull towards Ellis and magic, nor can she get rid of the feeling that getting involved with either spells her doom.
My Thoughts
Wherever you think this book is going, you’re wrong. An immaculate thriller, it will consume your thoughts while you’re not reading it, and it will linger in your mind for long after you’ve finished.
The two main characters are one of the book’s major strengths – both are layered and interesting. Felicity herself, I found to be a very compelling, if unreliable, narrator. Despite being the daughter of a wealthy socialite, many readers will empathize with Felicity’s struggles with grief, mental illness and her own queerness. Ellis is eccentric and intriguing. Much like Felicity, I found myself drawn to her, wanting to know more.
I wish some of the other side characters – namely Leonie, Quinn, and Kajal – got more attention and scenes. Leonie and Kajal are some of the only non-white characters, and I would’ve liked to learn a little more about their experiences. Like what drew them to apply for Godwin house – the ultra-exclusive residence at Dalloway where the characters live during the school year. Quinn, Ellis’ nonbinary older sibling, was just a ton of fun when they were finally “on-screen.” I would have loved to read more about them.
On another note, this book has some amazing prose. Lee is richly descriptive and creative with her imagery. Lines like “I feel like she creates and unravels me in the same moment, a sentence she writes and erases and rewrites, a product of her want and imagination. I feel like she invented me,” are plentiful. This dramatic, romantic flair won’t be for everyone. Still, in my opinion, it heightens the gothic atmosphere of a centuries-old finishing school.
A Lesson in Vengeance sits at the crossroads of ambition, privilege, grief and trauma. Its exploration of mental illness could be considered meta, as Felicity herself describes her thesis as an exploration of “…how depictions of mental illness are used to build suspense by introducing uncertainty and a sense of mistrust, especially with regard to the narrator’s perception of events, and the conflation of magic and madness in female characters.”
I thoroughly enjoyed reading A Lesson in Vengeance, and I recommend it to anyone looking for an appropriately autumn-themed book to close out the season with. You won’t regret it.
Corrin Lewis
Corrin first picked up a book when she was three years old and hasn’t stopped reading since. She’s a 2nd-year student in Algonquin College’s Professional Writing program and hopes to publish a novel of her own one day. Her favourite way to waste time is by playing video games.
