Literary Review, Jonathan Barnes: ‘Grant has rambunctious fun… but she studs it also with high seriousness… The final set piece, the concert itself, plaits together comedy and tragedy with sly skill… there is phrase making here of high order, wise and funny arrangements of words that linger in the imagination’

“This novel Sedition is a wicked, delicious romp through eighteenth century London, written with the telling wink of an author whose affection for Tom Jones and Tartuffe sparkles throughout. I stayed up far too late devouring this rollicking tale of sex, intrigue, marriage, revenge, and the sordid side of the pianoforte. Bach’s wig must be curling in his grave.

–Katherine Howe, New York Times Bestselling author of The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane and The House of Velvet and Glass

“A brilliant and alluring troublemaker incites her coterie of young women to rebellion, and a comic–but ultimately deadly–game ensues. Katharine Grant has written a provocative story of seduction and romance, lust and violence. Sedition is a tale of 19th-century female insurrection, set to a tune of Bach piano inventions, con brio.” –Kate Manning, Author of MY NOTORIOUS LIFE

‘A fast paced, sexy, historical read about the intriguing tutor/student relationship…Grants girls are vividly described: funny, witty, melancholy, rowdy, elegant and kick-ass’. Marie Claire, review

‘… men saw Alathea and wanted her, as men eating eggs want salt.’

Mr. Drigg stroked the cat. Her life contained no pianofortes, no daughters, no Annie, no Cantabile. ‘Just at this moment, I envy you,’ he said …

Sedition – an overturning, a revolt, a rebellion – dangerous in a country, even more dangerous in the home.

The first novel for adults from British YA author Grant is a witty, dark, and sophisticated tale set in 1790s London. Four men, wealthy but not well-bred, meet in a coffeehouse to discuss finding upper-class husbands for their five daughters. A concert on the still-new pianoforte, they decide, will display the girls perfectly to London’s elite. Piano-maker Vittorio Cantabile soon delivers the expensive instrument, along with a French music teacher. The aptly named Monsieur Belladroit begins a program of instruction and seduction, but is surprised when one of his charges, Alathea Sawneyford, makes the first move. Alathea, whose sexual boldness has unhappy roots, finds an unexpectedly deep connection with Annie, Cantabile’s hare-lipped daughter, like her, already an accomplished musician. Music provides the story’s intrigues as well as its moments of joy, but even art’s power to transcend human limits can’t produce a happy ending. Grant eschews period clichés in favor of sharp, unsentimental storytelling that evokes the era with zest and authenticity. Her London, like her characters, is both flawed and fascinating. The novel’s epigrammatic voice—“London was never so lovely as when you were about to leave it”—is another of its delights, detached in tone but delivering what are often dark ironies with memorable brevity and cleverness. Agent: Georgina Capel, Capel & Land. (Apr.)

The girl with the musk scent would be her target, and when she struck, her aim would be deadly.

When finally she left … she stalked through the night streets like a queen. Had her father remained up to ask where on earth she had been, she might have killed him.

“Well-detailed… [a] fun, lascivious gambol through the lives of women and men with decidedly carnal appetites… intriguing… the plot and characters are handled with grace and precision. Suggest to fans of Sarah Dunant and Sarah Waters.” — Booklist

http://www.scotsman.com/lifestyle/books/book-review-sedition-by-katie-grant-1-3264799
review Scotland on Sunday

Music and silence – Annie and Alathea know this piece well.

Tomorrow, my girls are launched into the world. I wonder what they’ll make of it.