A MAD, WICKED FOLLY is the title of Sharon Biggs Waller's stellar debut novel. It was published as a young adult tale but can definitely be enjoyed by older adults as well. In 1909, 17-year-old Victoria Darling is attending finishing school in France. Her dream, however, is to become an artist, so she sneaks off to art class with a well-known master and a bunch of male artists. Scorned by her classmates because she's a girl, one day she makes the foolhardy decision to pose as the nude model for the class. Word gets out, and Vicky is sent home to London in disgrace.

The Darlings are wealthy and live in a society where women are taught to be wives and mothers, to embroider, garden, give parties and visit their friends. Her parents want to marry Victoria off to Edmund Carrick-Humphrey or send her off to live with a maiden aunt.

Victoria wants to pursue her dreams of attending the Royal College of Art and does what she can to pursue her goals. Her excursions include getting arrested along with other members of the suffrage movement and becoming friends with a police constable whom she thinks of as her muse while still trying to appease her parents by attending balls and lunches with her mother. I can't say more without giving away more of this delectable novel, one of the best historical fiction stories I've read so far this year.

To say Sharon Biggs Waller has talent for writing is the understatement of the year, but she also has the ability to bring it all to life. Victoria, her parents, her art friends, Edmund Carrick-Humphrey, and PC Will Fletcher all virtually jump off the page. London in 1909 comes to life as well with the opulent dress of Edwardian times, twisting alleys of not-so-great neighborhoods, homes of the rich and the lower class and a cell in a police wagon. Waller has clearly done her research and uses historical details to flesh out her story. Some authors have a heavy hand and the details can become boring, but Waller is as deft as many of the artists in her tale, so the details only enhance. Waller combines action, romance and a thrilling time in history for women to create a wonderful novel that should be read and savored by all.

Book Summary

Welcome to the world of the fabulously wealthy in London, 1909, where dresses and houses are overwhelmingly opulent, social class means everything, and women are taught to be nothing more than wives and mothers. Into this world comes seventeen-year-old Victoria Darling, who wants only to be an artist—a nearly impossible dream for a girl.

After Vicky poses nude for her illicit art class, she is expelled from her French finishing school. Shamed and scandalized, her parents try to marry her off to the wealthy Edmund Carrick-Humphrey. But Vicky has other things on her mind: her clandestine application to the Royal College of Art; her participation in the suffragette movement; and her growing attraction to a working-class boy who may be her muse—or may be the love of her life.

As the world of debutante balls, corsets, and high society obligations closes in around her, Vicky must figure out: just how much is she willing to sacrifice to pursue her dreams?