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THE EXCLUSIVES
by Rebecca Thornton
Spiderline, May 2016
280 pages
$19.95 CAD
ISBN: 1487001029


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

This debut thriller opens in 2014 at an archeological dig in Amman, Jordan, when Josephine, the narrator, receives an email from a long lost school friend, Freya. Josephine flashes back eighteen years to her last year at Greenwood Hall, an exclusive boarding school in England where she had just become Head Girl. Freya must see her, the email declares. Josephine is thrown into a fugue state as memories crash down on her from the past.

Alternating between the present in Amman and the past in England, the chapters bring us into the dark events that triggered the narrator's state of mind. All looks normal on the surface. All the Upper Sixth girls are ambitious, hard-working and motivated to pass over all the hurdles to become students at Oxford. Josephine is absolutely driven to success, Freya not so much. The two friends since childhood decide to celebrate one last time before putting their noses to the grindstone. Going beyond the secret forbidden cigarette, the girls go down to London, dress outrageously and head off to their favorite club, fake IDs in hand.

Obviously something awful happens at the club but the next morning Josephine is already blocking it out. Freya is begging to talk about what happened and wouldn't that be simple. But since this is a thriller, nothing is ever that easy. The girls return to the fraught world of girls' boarding schools where every moment is filled with joy or terror, fear or flight. Friendships take on the intensity of sexual relationships, always operating at the highest decibel level, then breaking apart as alliances change.

Enter Verity, the third wheel, who takes advantage of the trouble between the girls to befriend Freya and stick it to Josephine. Freya becomes the victim of both girls' meanness, the most frightening thing in the novel. The extent to which Josephine goes in destroying Freya once she learns that Freya had been keeping secrets from her is very unsettling. Slowly, the school story unfolds, and Josephine is called back from Amman to London where her mother is dying. Josephine's mother has been a paranoid schizophrenic for many years and her death, combined with Freya's attempt to get in touch with her, has finally sent Josephine over the edge.

But you will be glad to know that therapy helps, as well as a stay in a psychiatric facility. Here is where the novel begins to lag. Having to go through Josephine's therapy sessions takes a good deal away from the suspense that has been building. But finally we get to the meeting between Josephine and Freya that we having been waiting for since the first chapter.

What happened that night? Well, it was awful, although it is not described very clearly. It seems as if the author is uncomfortable talking about sex and drugs so we only have a vague idea what happened. A hint – the morning after pill is mentioned as well as the fact that both girls took some pills that really messed them up that night.

Thornton does a good job of bringing the atmosphere of a girl's boarding school alive. She describes being young and naïve all too well. THE EXCLUSIVES might interest young women who have experienced even a touch of this kind of horror, but the rest of us might be mystified by all the furor.

§ Susan Hoover is a playwright, independent producer and retired college English teacher. She lives in Nova Scotia.

Reviewed by Susan Hoover, April 2016

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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