Sedition (Grant)

Sedition 
Katharine Grant, 2014
Henry Holt & Co.
320 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780805099928


Summary
An unforgettable historical tale of piano playing, passions, and female power...

♦ The setting: London, 1794.

♦ The problem: Four nouveau rich fathers with five marriageable daughters.

♦ The plan: The young women will learn to play the piano, give a concert for young Englishmen who have titles but no fortunes, and will marry very well indeed.

♦ The complications: The lascivious (and French) piano teacher; the piano maker’s jealous (and musically gifted) daughter; the one of these marriageable daughters with a mating plan of her own.

While it might be a truth universally acknowledged that a man in possession of a title and no money must be in want of a fortune, what does a sexually awakened young woman want? In her wickedly alluring romp through the late-Georgian London, Italian piano making, and tightly-fitted Polonaise gowns, Katharine Grant has written a startling and provocative debut. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—1958
• Raised—Lancashire, England, UK
• Education—N/A
• Currently—lives in Glasgow, Scotland, UK


Katharine Grant is (as K.M. Grant) a children's book author, best known in the UK for her DeGranville Trilogy. Sedition (2014) is her debut novel for adults.

Born Katharine Mary Towneley, she is the third daughter of Sir Simon Towneley and Lady Mary Fitzherbert. She grew-up She was brought up in Lancashire, England, amid the ghosts of her ancestors, one of whom was the last person in the UK to be hung, drawn, and quartered.

She has written regularly for most newspapers in Scotland and is currently the Royal Literary Fund Writing Fellow at the University of Glasgow. She lives in Glasgow with her husband and three children. (Adapted from publisher and Wikipedia. Retrieved 6/9/2014.)

Book Reviews
Grant’s portraits of the encounters between Alathea and her father are disturbing in their matter-of-factness. Although there are no graphic descriptions, Grant’s economical prose somehow makes these scenes even more vivid and brutal. Alathea’s father is a complex character who should be entirely despicable, and yet isn't quite. Grant never paints in strokes of black and white, of good and evil. Alathea, who ought to be considered the victim, seems strangely in control.
Andrea Wulf - New York Times Book Review


The darkness of Sedition is its driving force. A subversive and thrilling gothic tale, it will keep you up all night. It’s the sort of novel you say you’ll read for only 10 more minutes because it’s already way past your bedtime. Two hours later, your light is still on. [Grant’s] girls are wonderfully drawn. Spiteful, cliquey, and a curious tumble of innocence and hormones, they drive the plot in ferocious and unexpected directions.... She manages to be carnal without being graphic, detailed without being anatomical.… Sedition is not just about sex, although it is good on female passion. It is about the power of music and cultural clashes: old blood against new money; new musical genius against conservative sensibilities. Grant captures a dizzying sense that this is a world being remade simultaneously by bankers and Bach…. The plot grows, like the music, to a staggering climax, and Grant happily subverts the cliches of the heaving bosoms and seductive Frenchmen. She writes as Alathea plays the piano—with wit, verve and not a little mischief.
Times (UK)


In its fairly irresistible combination of transgressive sex and a richly layered evocation of history,　Sedition　demands comparison with Sarah Waters' untouchably brilliant novel.…. Her imagination is marvellously gothic and the Georgian London she conjures up brims with invention and detail.… Grant also has a gift for sly comedy.... Her characterization, too, is superlative…. Quite unforgettable.
Guardian (UK)


Seduction’ would be nearer the mark.... Packed full of colourful characters and with an unexpectedly poignant coda, this is an original, winningly-imagined tale of the ties that bind (and some very naughty pianoforte lessons).
Daily Mail (UK)


Sedition.… is as dark and deceitful as it is gloriously bawdy, the beautiful bastard child of Choderlos de Laclos's　Les liaisons dangereuses　and Sarah Waters's Fingersmith.
Observer (UK)


This is one of those precious novels. The kind that bookworms burrow inside to devour with relish from cover to cover. The kind you’ll secrete behind all the other books on your shelves in case friends steal it and somehow "forget" to give it back.... Not a dull or superfluous page.... Grant at times writes like Jane Austen on crack cocaine or Dickens sating himself at an orgy—drawing freely on the literary posturing of past greats, but entirely, refreshingly modern, entirely herself…. She makes you gasp and laugh and re-read. . . Her style is a triumph of wit and brio.
Scotsman (UK)


A fast paced, sexy, historical read about the intriguing tutor/student relationship. . . . Grant’s girls are vividly described: funny, witty, melancholy, rowdy, elegant and kick-ass, each learning the skills to be the mistress of their own destiny.
Marie Claire (UK)


(Starred review.) [A] witty, dark, and sophisticated tale set in 1790s London..... Grant eschews period cliches in favor of sharp, unsentimental storytelling that evokes the era with zest and authenticity.... The novel’s epigrammatic voice...is another of its delights, detached in tone but delivering what are often dark ironies with memorable brevity and cleverness.
Publishers Weekly


Drawn in by the compellingly edgy language, the beautiful evocation of emotions through music, ...the reader is ultimately frustrated by the brevity of the novel.... A longer book that allowed greater development of secondary characters would have strengthened the emotional and narrative impact.  —Cynthia Johnson, Cary Memorial Lib., Lexington, MA
Library Journal


Sedition could easily have dissolved into semi-kinky melodrama, a chronicle of Belladroit’s conquests. Thanks to author Katharine Grant’s sly writing, it never does… A thumping debut filled with sex, manipulation and a dash of romance. Wickedly dark and provocative, Sedition is a bold reminder that the thirst for power and status remains unquenched over the ages.
BookPage


Late eighteenth-century London is the well-detailed setting for this fun, lascivious gambol through the lives of women and men with decidedly carnal appetites.... Although the dark theme of incest winds through the story, overall the plot and characters are handled with grace and precision. —Julie Trevelyan
Booklist


The grooming of five young Englishwomen for the marriage market goes wildly off the rails in a debut that...takes some surprisingly saucy turns.... Grant's tale, though fresh and spirited, sags in the middle before picking up some speed for the concluding concert.... [A] cleverly seductive romp, which conceals, beneath its witty surface, some very dark comments on fathers and daughters.
Kirkus Reviews

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