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Part one

Sue Trinder, an orphan raised in ‘a Fagin-like den of thieves’ by her adoptive mother, Mrs. Sucksby, is sent to help Richard ‘Gentleman’ Rivers seduce a wealthy heiress. Posing as a maid, Sue is to gain the trust of the lady, Maud Lilly, and eventually persuade her to elope with Gentleman. Once they are married, Gentleman plans to commit Maud to a madhouse and claim her fortune for himself.

Sue travels to Briar, Maud’s secluded home in the country, where she lives a sheltered life under the care of her uncle, Christopher Lilly. Like Sue, Maud was orphaned at birth; her mother died in a mental asylum, and she has never known her father. Her uncle uses her as a secretary to assist him in compiling a dictionary, and keeps her to the house, working with him in the silence of his library.

Sue and Maud forge an unlikely friendship, which develops into a mutual physical passion; after a time, Sue realizes she has fallen in love with Maud, and begins to regret her involvement in Gentleman’s plot. Deeply distressed, but feeling she has no choice, Sue persuades Maud to marry Gentleman, and the trio flee from Briar to a nearby church, where Maud and Gentleman are hastily married in a midnight ceremony.

Making a temporary home in a local cottage, and telling Maud they are simply waiting for their affairs to be brought to order in London, Gentleman and a reluctant Sue make arrangements for Maud to be committed to an asylum for the insane; her health has already waned as a result of the shock of leaving her quiet life at Briar, to Gentleman’s delight. After a week, he and Sue escort an oblivious Maud to the asylum in a closed carriage. However, the doctors apprehend Sue on arrival, and from the cold reactions of Gentleman and the seemingly innocent Maud, Sue guesses that it is she who has been conned: “That bitch knew everything. She had been in on it from the start.”

Part two

In the second part of the novel, Maud takes over the narrative. She describes her early life being raised by the nurses in the mental asylum where her mother died, and the sudden appearance of her uncle when she was eleven, who arrives to take her to Briar to be his secretary.

Her induction into his rigid way of life is brutal; Maud is made to wear gloves constantly to preserve the surfaces of the books she is working on, and is denied food when she tires of labouring with her uncle in his library. Distressed, and missing her previous home, Maud begins to demonstrate sadistic tendencies, biting and kicking her maid, Agnes, and her abusive carer, Mrs Stiles. She harbours a deep resentment toward her mother for abandoning her, and starts holding her mother’s locket every night, and whispering to it how much she hates her.

Shockingly, Maud reveals that her uncle’s work is not to compile a dictionary, but to assemble a bibliography of literary pornography, for the reference of future generations. In his own words, Christopher Lilly is a ‘curator of poisons.’ He introduces Maud to the keeping of the books—-indexing them and such—-when she is barely twelve, and deadens her reactions to the shocking material. As she grows older, Maud reads the material aloud for the appreciation of her uncle’s colleagues. On one occasion, when asked by one of them how she can stand to curate such things, Maud answers, “I was bred to the task, as servants are.”

She has resigned herself to a life serving her uncle’s obscure ambition when Richard Rivers arrives at Briar. He familiarises her with a plan to escape her exile in Briar, a plan involving the deception of a commonplace girl who will believe she had been sent to Briar to trick Maud out of her inheritance. After initial hesitation, Maud agrees to the plan and receives Sue weeks later, pretending to know nothing about the plot.

Maud falls in love with Sue over time and, like Sue, begins to question whether she will be able to carry out Gentleman’s plot as planned. Though overcome with guilt, Maud does, and travels with Gentleman to London after committing Sue to the asylum, claiming to the doctors that Sue was the mad Mrs Maud Rivers who believed she was a commonplace girl.

Instead of taking Maud to a house in Chelsea, as he had promised, Gentleman takes her to Mrs Sucksby in the Borough. It was, it turns out, Gentleman’s plan to bring her here all along; and, Mrs Sucksby, who had orchestrated the entire plan, reveals to a stunned Maud that a lady, Marianne Lilly, had come to Lant Street seventeen years earlier, pregnant and alone. When Marianne discovered her cruel father and brother had found her, she begged Mrs Sucksby to take her newborn child and give her one of her ‘farmed’ infants to take its place. Sue, it turns out, was Marianne Lilly’s true daughter, and Maud one of the many orphaned infants who had been placed on Mrs Sucksby’s care after being abandoned. By the decree of Marianne’s will, written on the night of the switch, both girls were entitled to a share of Marianne Lilly’s fortune. By having Sue committed, Mrs Sucksby could intercept her share. She had planned the switch of the two girls for seventeen years, and enlisted the help of Gentleman to bring Maud to her in the weeks before her eighteenth birthday, when she would become legally entitled to the money. By setting Sue up as the ‘mad Mrs Rivers’, Gentleman could, by law, claim her fortune for himself.

Alone and friendless, Maud has no choice but to remain a prisoner at Lant Street. She makes one attempt to escape to the home of one of her uncle’s friends, Mr Hawtrey, but he turns her away, appalled at the scandal that she has fallen into, and anxious to preserve his local reputation. Maud returns to Lant Street and finally submits to the care of Mrs Sucksby. It is then that Mrs Sucksby reveals to her that Maud was not an orphan that she took into her care, as she and Gentleman had told her, but Mrs Sucksby’s own daughter.

Part three

The novel resumes Sue’s narrative, picking up where Maud and Gentleman had left her in the mental asylum. Sue is devastated at Maud’s betrayal and furious that Gentleman double-crossed her. When she screams to the asylum doctors that she is not Mrs Rivers but her maid Susan, they ignore her, as Gentleman (helped by Maud) has convinced them that this is precisely her delusion, and that she is really Maud Lilly Rivers, his troubled wife.

Sue is treated appallingly by the nurses in the asylum, being subjected to beatings and taunts on a regular basis. Such is her maltreatment and loneliness that, after a time, she begins to fear that she truly has gone mad. She is sustained by the belief that Mrs Sucksby will find and rescue her. Sue dwells on Maud’s betrayal, the devastation of which quickly turns to anger.

Sue’s chance at freedom comes when Charles, a stable boy from Briar, comes to visit her. He is the nephew, it turns out, of the local woman (Mrs Cream) who owned the cottage the trio had stayed in on the night of Maud and Gentleman’s wedding. Charles, a simple boy, had been pining for the charming attentions of Gentleman to such an extent that his father Mr Way had begun to beat him, severely. Charles ran away, and had been directed to the asylum by Mrs Cream, who had no idea of the nature of the place.

Sue quickly enlists his help in her escape, persuading him to purchase a blank key and a file to give to her on his next visit. This he does, and Sue, using the skills learnt growing up in the Borough, escapes from the asylum and travels with Charles to London, with the intention of returning to Mrs Sucksby and her home in Lant Street.

On arrival, an astonished Sue sees Maud at her bedroom window. After days of watching the activity of her old home from a nearby boarding house, Sue sends Charles with a letter explaining all to Mrs Sucksby, still believing that it was Maud and Gentleman alone who deceived her. Charles returns, saying Maud intercepted the letter, and sends Sue a playing card—the Two of Hearts, representing lovers—in reply. Sue takes the token as a joke, and storms into the house to confront Maud, half-mad with rage. She tells everything to Mrs Sucksby, who pretends to have known nothing, and despite Mrs Sucksby’s repeated attempts to calm her, swears she will kill Maud for what she has done to her. Gentleman arrives, and though initially shocked at Sue’s escape, laughingly begins to tell Sue how Mrs Sucksby played her for a fool. Maud physically tries to stop him, knowing how the truth would devastate Sue; a scuffle between Maud, Gentleman and Mrs Sucksby ensues, and in the confusion, Gentleman is stabbed by the knife Sue had taken up to kill Maud, minutes earlier. He bleeds to death. A hysterical Charles alerts the police. Mrs Sucksby, at last sorry for how she has deceived the two girls, immediately confesses to the murder: “Lord knows, I’m sorry for it now; but I done it. And these girls here are innocent girls, and know nothing at all about it; and have harmed no-one.”

Mrs Sucksby is hanged for killing Gentleman; it is revealed that Richard Rivers was not a shamed gentleman at all, but a draper’s son named Frederick Bunt, who had had ideas above his station. Maud disappears, though Sue sees her briefly at Mrs Sucksby’s trial and gathers from the prison matrons that Maud had been visiting Mrs Sucksby in the days leading up to her death. Sue remains unaware of her true parentage, until she finds the will of Marianne Lilly tucked in the folds of Mrs Sucksby’s gown. Realizing everything, an overwhelmed Sue sets out to find Maud, beginning by returning to Briar. It is there she finds Maud, and the nature of Christopher Lilly’s work is finally revealed to Sue. It is further revealed that Maud is now writing erotic fiction to sustain herself financially. The two girls, still very much in love with each other despite everything, make peace and give vent to their feelings at last.

2

Nancy “Nan” Astley is a sheltered 18-year-old living with her working-class family and helping in their oyster restaurant in Whitstable, Kent. She becomes instantly and desperately enamoured with a “masher”, or male impersonator, named Kitty Butler, who performs for a season at the local theatre. They begin a friendship that grows when, after Kitty finds an opportunity to perform in London for better exposure, she asks Nan to join her. Nan enthusiastically agrees and leaves her family to act as Kitty’s dresser while she performs. Although Kitty and Nan acknowledge their relationship to be sisterly, Nan continues to love Kitty until a jealous fight forces Kitty to admit she feels the same, although she insists that they keep their relationship secret. Simultaneously, Kitty’s manager Walter decides that Kitty needs a performing partner to reach true success, and suggests Nan for the role. Nan is initially horrified by the idea, but takes to it. The duo become quite famous until Nan realises she is homesick after being gone from her family for more than a year. Her return home is underwhelming, so she returns to London early to find Kitty in bed with Walter. They announce that the act is finished and they are to be married.

Astonished and deeply bruised by the discovery, Nan wanders the streets of London, finally holing herself in a filthy boarding house for weeks in a state of madness until her funds run out. After spying the male costumes she took as her only memory of her time with Kitty, Nan begins to walk the streets of London as a man and easily passes. She is solicited by a man for sex and begins renting, but dressed only as a man for male clients, never letting them know she is a woman. She meets a socialist activist named Florence who lives near the boarding house, but before she can get to know her, Nan is hired by a wealthy widow with licentious tastes named Diana. Although realising—and initially enjoying—that she is an object to Diana and her friends, Nan stays with her for over a year as “Neville”, dressed in the finest men’s clothes Diana can afford. The relationship erodes, however, and Diana throws Nan into the streets.

Nan stumbles through London trying to find Florence, which she eventually does; Florence is now melancholy, however, with a child. Nan stays with Florence and her brother Ralph, working as their housekeeper. Nan and Florence grow closer during the year they live together, and Nan learns that the a previous boarder with Florence and Ralph had a child and died shortly after giving birth. Florence was deeply in love with the boarder but her affections were not returned. During an outing to a women’s pub, Nan is recognised by former fans, to Florence’s astonishment, and Nan divulges her own spotty past to Florence. Cautiously, they begin a love affair. Putting her theatrical skills to use, Nan assists Ralph in preparing a speech at an upcoming socialist rally. At the event Nan jumps onstage to help Ralph when he falters, and is noticed once more by Kitty, who asks her to come back so they can continue their affair in secret. Realising how much shame Kitty continues to feel, how much of herself was compromised during their affair, and that her truest happiness is where she is now, Nan turns Kitty away and joins Florence.

3

Margaret Prior (also called “Peggy” and “Aurora”), an unmarried woman from an upper class family, visits the Millbank Prison in the 1870s Victorian era England. The protagonist is an overall unhappy person, recovering from her father’s death and her subsequent failed suicide attempt and struggling with her lack of power living at home with her over-involved mother despite being almost 30. She becomes a “Lady Visitor” of the prison, hoping to escape her troubles and be a guiding figure in the lives of the female prisoners. As she peers through a flap in the door, entranced by the sight of a young woman with a flower, she is reminded of a Carlo Crivelli painting. Of all her friendships with prisoners, she is most fascinated by this woman, who she learns to be Selina Dawes, medium of spirits.

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5

Sixteen year-old Anamika Sharma, the first person narrator, is a bright young student aware of her privileged position within Indian society. Head Prefect at her school, she aspires to graduate with excellent grades so as to be able to go on to college in the United States to study physics. Anamika is confident that she will be able to get in, but feels conflicted about contributing to the country’s brain drain; ultimately, she concludes that it would be best to return to her native country after the completion of her studies to contribute to the modernization of traditional Indian society and breaking down the rigid caste system.

The novel is set against the backdrop of the protests against the recommendations of the Mandal commission, which trigger several acts of self-immolation, and for high school students all this means a disruption of the normal school routine. In particular, classes are suspended for weeks on end, and although students are obliged to form self-study groups at their homes Anamika finds more time than usual to pursue her private interests.

She spends much of her time with Tripta Adhikari, a free-thinking divorced lady about twice her age whom she calls “India”. India is a wealthy academic who lives in Anamika’s neighbourhood, and occasionally Anamika sneaks out of the house when her parents have already gone to bed to spend the night with her new-found friend. Mr and Mrs Sharma know about Tripta Adhikari but naturally assume that the latter has a maternal relationship with their daughter, while India herself knows very well that what she is doing amounts to statutory rape. Anamika’s parents even let her go on a short holiday to Kasauli with India and two of her friends.

[…] I noticed that my biting had caused her to start breathing heavily, so I replaced my teeth with my lips. I gathered different parts of her flesh between my lips and kissed her all over, in the opposite order in which I had bitten. In her breathless moans and her cries of pleasure I owned her more than I owned myself and was immersed in her more than I had ever been immersed in my own self. Me, I had not yet discovered. I was an unknown quantity, a constantly unraveling mystery. But India was absolutely and completely known both carnally and otherwise. I rolled off of her with the sweet exhaustion of a man who has just hunted his dinner animal. (Chapter xix)

Also in Kasauli, Anamika is horrified to see that she is expected to drink beer—which she does—and that one evening the grown-ups with whom she is travelling not only gather together to smoke a joint but also offer her one as well. In the end Anamika politely refuses. (“The love of my parents, my education, every moral lesson I had learned was being challenged.”)

Anamika’s second “liaison” is with Rani, the family’s live-in servant. Illiterate, only able to speak Hindi, and regularly beaten up by her alcoholic husband, 23 year-old Rani is rescued from a jhuggi by the Sharmas. However, as their apartment does not have a servant’s bedroom, Rani is ordered to sleep on the floor of Anamika’s room. This, of course, provides the girl with ample opportunity to explore submissive Rani’s perfect body, in spite of the servant’s occasional tentative protestations that “Babyji”, for her own good, should seek the love of a boy her own age. Anamika, however, sticks with her choice, rejects male advances, and, despite the danger of being stigmatised as someone who associates with a person from a much lower caste, is even prepared to teach Rani some English.

Finally, she makes several passes at Sheela, one of the girls in her class. Although their male classmates’ consider Sheela much prettier than Anamika, Sheela herself is quite unaware of her budding beauty and the boyfriends she could have if she wanted to. She does question whether her intimacies with another girl are morally okay but does not recognize the seriousness of Anamika’s endeavours. When Anamika asks her if she will be her “mistress” when they grow up she replies with a non-committal “Maybe”. Only when Anamika goes too far and forces herself on Sheela does the latter reject her, at least for the time being.

“Anamika, please stop,” she whispered urgently.
If she really didn’t want me to she could scream or move away or kick me. “You’re beautiful,” I said as I slid my hand between her thighs where her bloomers should have been. She closed her eyes again, but this time I couldn’t tell if she was enjoying it or not. I pushed with my finger. I wasn’t slow, the way I had been with India and Rani. I was afraid if I was too gentle she would use it to move away. I used all the force I could muster.
She let out a howl. “Stop, it hurts.”
I pulled back and said, “I just fucked you.” There was blood on my finger. (Chapter xviii)

“Divorced woman, servant woman, underage woman, I was pursuing them all,” Anamika says about herself. Though she likens herself to a playboy, she always makes sure that none of her lovers suspects anything out of the ordinary, that each of them believes she is the only one for her.

6

Sugar Rush is Julie Burchill’s first novel aimed at teenagers, published in 2004. It charts the progress of Kim Lewis as she is forced to leave her posh high school and attend the infamous local comprehensive, Ravendene. This coincides with a fight with her best friend, Zoe “Saint” Clements, leading to her making friends with Ravendene’s “Top Girl”: Maria “Sugar” Sweet. Eventually, Kim falls for Sugar, Sugar falls into bed with Kim, and the friendship takes on an ever-more intense nature that eventually turns tragic.

The book has been praised as a frank and well-written account of teenage trials and tribulations. It contains some explicit content.

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Liza Winthrop first meets Annie Kenyon at the Metropolitan Museum of Art on a rainy day. The two become fast friends, although they come from different backgrounds.

Liza is the student body president at her private school, Foster Academy, where she is studying hard to get into MIT and become an architect. She lives with her parents and younger brother in the upscale neighborhood of Brooklyn Heights, where most residents are professionals.

Annie goes to a public school and lives with her parents — a bookkeeper and a cabdriver — and grandmother in a lower-income part of Brooklyn. Although Annie is not sure if she will be accepted, she hopes to attend the University of California, Berkeley to develop her talent as a singer.

While they have different histories and goals in life, the two girls do share a close friendship that quickly grows into love. Liza’s school is struggling to remain open and she finds herself having to defend a student who planned a poorly conceived program: ear piercing in the school basement. This results in a three-day school suspension for Liza and helps to bring Liza and Annie closer together as they both deal with the struggles encountered by many high school students.

The suspension and the partly concomitant Thanksgiving break give the girls time to become closer and lead to their first kiss. Annie admits that she has thought that she may be gay. Liza soon realizes that although she has always considered herself different, she has not considered her sexual orientation until falling in love with Annie.

When two of Liza’s female teachers (who live together) go on vacation during spring break, she volunteers for the job of taking care of their home and feeding their cats. The two girls stay at the house together, but in an unexpected turn of events a Foster Academy administrator discovers Liza and Annie together. Liza is forced to tell her family about her relationship with Annie, and the headmistress of her school organizes a meeting of the school’s board of trustees in order to expel Liza. The board rules in favor of Liza staying at Foster, and she is allowed to keep her position as student president. However, the two teachers, who in the process are discovered to be gay, are fired. After their initial shock at discovering the girls together, the teachers are very supportive and go out of their way to reassure Liza not to worry about their dismissal, but Liza’s guilt and confusion still causes her to end her relationship with Annie, and the girls go their separate ways to colleges on different coasts. In the end, Liza’s reevaluation of her relationship while at college and her corresponding acceptance of her sexual orientation allow the two girls to reunite.

The book is framed and narrated by Liza’s thoughts as she attempts to write Annie a letter, in response to the many letters Annie has sent her. This narration comes right before the winter break of both their colleges’ and Liza is unable to write or mail the letter she had been working on. Instead she calls her friend, and the two reconcile and decide to meet together before going home for winter break.

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Nina, Avery, and Mel have been best friends forever, They tell each other everything, and are completely inseperable. For the first time, Nina is leaving for the summer for a pre-college course. There she has a great time, with her nutty room mate. But when the guy across the hall takes and interest in her, everything gets better. Nina falls head over heals in love- eventually.

Meanwhile, back home, something is happening. After a night of partiying, Mel is drunk, and Avery takes her back to her house. They sleep in Avery’s bed – and both have their first kiss – with each other. They accept they are Lesbian – but keep in hidden, because they know it won’t be accepted. When Nina comes home, she is still clouded with lovesick thoughts. She doesn’t even see it, until out on a shopping trip with Avery and Mel. They were acting strange, like they wanted to be alone, so Nina shopped by herself for a while. Then when she went to find them, she had the biggest surprise of her life- and caught them kissing.

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Once there were great magicians born to the Maghuin Dhonn; the folk of the Brown Bear, the oldest tribe in Alba. But generations ago, the greatest of them all broke a sacred oath sworn in the name of all his people. Now, only small gifts remain to them. Through her lineage, Moirin possesses such gifts – the ability to summon the twilight and conceal herself, and the skill to coax plants to grow.

Moirin has a secret, too. From childhood onward, she senses the presence of unfamiliar gods in her life; the bright lady, and the man with a seedling cupped in his palm. Raised in the wilderness by her reclusive mother, it isn’t until she comes of age that Moirin learns how illustrious, if mixed, her heritage is. The great granddaughter of Alais the Wise, child of the Maghuin Donn, and a cousin of the Cruarch of Alba, Moirin learns her father was a D’Angeline priest dedicated to serving Naamah, goddess of desire.

After Moirin undergoes the rites of adulthood, she finds divine acceptance…on the condition that she fulfill an unknown destiny that lies somewhere beyond the ocean. Or perhaps oceans. Beyond Terre d’Ange where she finds her father, in the far reaches of distant Ch’in, Moirin’s skills are a true gift when facing the vengeful plans of an ambitious mage, a noble warrior princess desperate to save her father’s throne, and the spirit of a celestial dragon.

From Publishers Weekly

The seventh installment in Carey’s bestselling Kushiel series (after 2008’s Kushiel’s Mercy) follows its youthful protagonist, Moirim, from bed to bed as she worships sexuality goddess Naamah. Following a tragic affair, Moirim travels to Terre d’Ange, this world’s France. There she takes a variety of lovers, from the aristocratic occultist Raphael de Mereliot to Queen Jehanne herself.

10

Things are changing for Cat Hood, a small-town carpenter living in the mountains. Her first book has been published, her agent’s making big plans, and the whole town thinks she’s a celebrity. She’s also got a long-lost brother who turns up out of nowhere with a wife who’s pregnant with twins, a ’59 Harley Duo Glide that makes a funny noise, a busted-up hand that puts her out of commission, and a German Shepherd named Mike who won’t get off the couch. Enter Melissa McHeaney – doctor, painter, green-eyed Irish lass. The one. And when the pair finally connect, it clicks so loud everybody close to Cat hears it. But Cat is dragging her feet, driving her friends – and herself – crazy. Is she scared off by a good thing? Or does the problem run deeper than that? There’s a ghost in Cat’s head and heart and a story waiting to be told – the story of her grandmother Kate, who raised Cat and her brother after the death of their parents. The Hoods had emigrated from Scotland in the late 30s, leaving home under mysterious circumstances that Cat was certain were the cause of Kate’s cold, harsh brand of mothering that sent her brother Will running for his freedom – and Cat running from herself. Cat Rising is the richly drawn tale of one woman’s quest to build a future through the discoveries of her past. Cynn Chadwick paints a vibrant portrait of community – friends and family together for the long haul, no matter how bumpy the ride