I chose this book because the plot and situation are similar to one of my very favorites: Donna Tartt’s The Secret History. In both there is a school or college setting in which an outsider is drawn into a select society of friends led by a charismatic teacher.  In both they fall under the influence of the Greek tragedian Euripides: the Bacchae in Tartt, Medea here. And in both to cover up the crimes they commit under the influence of dark divinities, they have to commit murder to keep their secrets. The school here is Elm-Grove Academy. Our narrator Violet is a new girl who is taking under the wing of her new friend Robin and meets her friends, Nicky, Alex and Grace. She is initiated into their secret society led by Anabel, one of the teachers. The society has been in existence since the seventeenth-century, with membership handed down from mother to daughter, employing occult means to punish men for their crimes against women. As it turns out, the girls themselves become some of the victims.

I knew something had gone wrong when I reached the third page and read: “Their lives ended and mom’s life stopped.” Wait a moment! Do English girls usually refer to their female parent as “mom”? Fortunately my copy of the English edition reached me a couple of days later so I could check the original and sure enough, someone had systematically, if carelessly, Americanized the text, turning “mum” into “mom” as well as “petrol” into “gasoline”; but these changes are not only unsystematic because sometimes the original contains Americanisms( “elevator” and “lift” both occur). One attempt by a cack-handed revisor I found hilarious. The girls have killed the Dean of the school (he’s no loss—refers to graduates of a girls’ school as “alumni”):

English edition: “I saw my chance. ‘I think I saw a petrol can in the garage.’

“’No way,’ Alex said. ‘If they find petrol on anything, it won’t look like an accident …’”

American version: “I saw my chance. ‘I think I saw a petrol can in the garage.’

“‘No way,’ Alex said, ‘If they find gasoline on anything, it won’t look like an accident …’”

No indeed, the police will know an American killed the Dean, and our girls will be in the clear.

We also get “vacationing” for “holidaying,” “cotton candy” for “candy-floss,” and “sneakers” for “trainers.” The problem isn’t just that the American expressions look uncouth in situ, but that they completely violate the first rule of realistic fiction: that characters remain believable and in character. It also shows the author believes that her readers across the pond are provincial boors.

Unlike The Secret History, where I thought I had a good idea of the author’s meaning, I cannot decide here what my take should be. Perhaps as a male reader, I’m not allowed an opinion. From the plot, I gather a tragic version of the sorcerer’s apprentice story, which also fits very well with Euripides’ Medea, as well is both pagan and Christian moral principles. Anger or Ira is one of the seven deadly sins, and when unleashed ultimately destroys the innocent, such as Medea’s children. (I had some real doubts about the author’s knowledge of the Classics when I read: “She [Medea] was the only survivor, walking from Athens wearing the blood of her children.” No, she killed the children at Corinth and she didn’t walk, she flew, in a chariot drawn by dragons to Athens.) But given the feminist beliefs that underlie this story, I suspect we’re supposed to sympathize with Violet at the end. Fortunately we are dealing with a character in a  story-book.

Fortunately, American readers who want to read the authentic version don’t have to buy the dumb-downed US version. Given the difference in prices and exchange rates, you can buy the correct English version from Amazon.co.uk and pay the postage and still save on the American hardback, and have an English narrator speaking real English.