Maestra (Hilton)

Maestra 
L.S. Hilton, 2016
Penguin Publishing
320 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780399184260


Summary
With the cunning of Gone Girl’s Amy Dunne, and as dangerous as The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’s Lisbeth Salander, the femme fatale of this Talented Mr. Ripley–esque psychological thriller is sexy, smart, and very, very bad in all the best ways.

By day, Judith Rashleigh is a put-upon assistant at a prestigious London art house.

By night, she’s a hostess at one of the capital’s notorious champagne bars, although her work there pales against her activities on nights off.
 
TO GET WHAT SHE WANTS
Desperate to make something of herself, Judith knows she has to play the game. She’s transformed her accent and taught herself about wine and the correct use of a dessert fork, not to mention the art of discretion.

She’s learned to be a good girl. But when Judith is fired for uncovering a dark secret at the heart of the art world—and her honest efforts at a better life are destroyed—she turns to a long-neglected friend. A friend who kept her chin up and back straight through every slight: Rage.

SHE WILL CROSS EVERY LINE
Feeling reckless, she accompanies one of the champagne bar’s biggest clients to the French Riviera, only to find herself alone again after a fatal accident.

Tired of striving and the slow crawl to the top, Judith has a realization: If you need to turn yourself into someone else, loneliness is a good place to start. And she’s been lonely a long time.

Maestra is a glamorous, ferocious thriller and the beginning of a razor-sharp trilogy that introduces the darkly irresistible Judith Rashleigh, a femme fatale for the ages whose vulnerability and ruthlessness will keep you guessing until the last page. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• AKA—Lisa Hilton
• Birth—December 15, 1974
• Where—Liverpool, England, UK
• Education—B.A., Oxford University
• Currently—London, England


Lisa Hilton grew up in the north of England and read English at New College, Oxford, after which she studied History of Art in Florence and Paris. After eight years in New York, Paris and Milan, she returned to England and now lives in London with her daughter Ottavia.

Biographies
Hilton has written three historical biographies on royal subjects: ♦ The Real Queen of France: Athenais and Louis XIV (2002) ♦ Mistress Peachum's Pleasure: The Life of Lavinia Fenton, Duchess of Bolton (2006) ♦ Queens Consort: England's Medieval Queens (2008).

Horrors of Love (2011) is a biographical treatment of 20th-centiury English novelist and socialite Nancy Mitford and her love affair with Gaston Palewski.

Novels
Hilton has written several novels: ♦ The House With The Blue Shutters (2010) ♦ Wolves in Winter (2012) ♦ The Stolen Queen (2015) ♦ Maestra (2016). The latter, written under the name L.S. Hilton, is the first in a trilogy about femme fatale Judith Rashleigh, her sexual adventures and misadventures.

Journalism
In addition to authoring books, Hilton also works as a journalist. She has written for the Spectator, Times Literary Supplement, Literary Review, Vogue, Tatler, Elle, Daily Beast, Evening Standard, Observer, Independent and Daily Telegraph. She writes a monthly restaurant column for the British cultural and political affairs magazine Standpoint. (Adapted from the author's website and Wikipedia. Retrieved 4/19/2016.)

Book Reviews
Maestra features a feisty, morally complex and sharp heroine who may appeal to fans of Stieg Larsson’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl.
New York Times


An unpredictable London auction house assistant turned high-class escort slips effortlessly into the world of the glamorous and wealthy, crossing international borders and leaving destruction in her wake (5 Killer Books for 2016).
Wall Street Journal,


Maestra will be one of this year’s most talked-about novels…Judith may well be [a] more interesting character [than Patricia Highsmith’s Tom Ripley].... Will Judith’s dreams come true, or will her crimes catch up with her? We won’t know right away. At least two more of her adventures remain...more mayhem, more art—and certainly more sex—lie ahead for insatiable Judith and for all those consenting adults who will delight in her endless ups and downs.
Washington Post


What makes a woman who’ll do anything to get what she wants so threatening...and thrilling?... It’s Judith’s modes of retaliation that make her a radical heroine. She deploys a uniquely female arsenal...weaponizing femininity.... It’s hard not to feel vicariously empowered by a woman unapologetically in pursuit. Let’s call her the Sheryl Sandberg of sociopaths, leaning in to the hilt.
Oprah Magazine
 

[J]ubilantly mordant.... Already optioned for the big screen by Amy Pascal, [Maestra is] the story of a twenty-first-century femme fatale as lethal as Tom Ripley and as seductive as [Lauren] Bacall.
Vogue


As readable as any crime thriller, but also clearly belongs in the literary tradition of Moll Flanders and Vanity Fair.
Sunday Times (UK)


Meet Judith, an art-house assistant who'll make you root for the bad girl once you really get to know her.
Marie Claire


The name Judith Rashleigh will be on everyone's lips, just like Amy Dunne (Gone Girl) and Lisbeth Salander (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) were in summers past.... Thank the book gods that L.S. Hilton's Maestra is only the first installment in a series.
Redbook


You're going to want to hurry up and read this R-rated psychological thriller before it hits the big screen—it's already been optioned by Columbia Pictures. Think 50 Shades of Grey meets The Talented Mr. Ripley.
Allure.com


(Starred review.) [D]deliciously Highsmithian thriller, the first of a trilogy.... As Judith assumes and sheds identities...during a twisty series of increasingly treacherous escapades (several X-rated), Hilton artfully conjures a glossy world where just about everything—and everyone—has its price.
Publishers Weekly


Judith is a female Tom Ripley (Patricia Highsmith's con artist protagonist)—doing all she can to survive and further her entree into the upper echelon of society. Verdict: The first of a planned trilogy, Hilton's debut is not for the faint of heart as Judith's exploits—from sex parties to murders—are described graphically.... [A] scandalous, thrilling tour through Europe and the art world. —Lynnanne Pearson, Skokie P.L., IL
Library Journal


(Starred review.) Delicious....at once glamorous, edgy, decadent (like rich but somewhat bitter dark chocolate), erotic, and irresistible. Judith Rashleigh is just full of surprises. She is ruthless and, yet...vulnerable.... [M.aestra] is a gift for readers who delight in vengeful female protagonists. The detailed sex scenes will also appeal to fans of the Fifty Shades series.
Booklist


Hilton's novel about a woman with exotic sexual appetites, and a penchant for murdering those who cross her, mixes blood and sex the way a bartender slaps together martinis.... Billed as erotic suspense, this is not a book for suspense fans; it's more a portrait of a sociopathic woman with a voracious appetite for sexual adventure.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
1. Discuss Judith’s childhood. How does her background shape her character?

2. At one point Judith reflects that "wealth creeps under your epidermis like poison. It invades your posture, your gestures, the way you carry yourself" (p. 112). Does wealth change Judith? Would she be different if she had been born rich? How does the novel portray people born into wealth?

3. Do you like Judith? Why or why not? What surprised you the most about her character?

4. Judith is never described physically in the novel. Why do you think this is? How do you picture her?

5. In the beginning of the novel Judith reveals, "Rage had always been my friend.... Rage had kept my back straight; rage had seen me through the fights and the slights" (p. 64). At what points in the novel does Judith turn to rage? How does rage shape Judith’s decisions? Can you relate to her frustrations? Why or why not?

6. What does Renaud’s relationship with Judith reveal about her character? Did you guess where their relationship was going?

7. Discuss the portrayal of sex in the novel. How does Judith’s sexuality inform your understanding of her character? Would you react differently to the sex scenes if Judith were a man? Why or why not?

8. Judith is a woman who decides unapologetically to own herself—her body, her desires, her ambitions. In what ways does her character challenge conventional expectations for women? How did you feel reading her transgressive behavior? Is Maestra a feminist novel?

9. Judith relates to other women in a variety of ways throughout the novel. Were you shocked by how some of those relationships develop over the course of the novel?

10. On page 160, Judith tells us, "Later, I had a lot of time to think about when I’d made the decision. Had it been swelling inside me all along, waiting, like a tumor?" Was there one moment in the novel in which you saw her character change? If so, when? If not, why?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)

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