A Great and Terrible Beauty

In 1895, sixteen-year-old Gemma Doyle has a frightening vision in Bombay, and soon afterward her mother is dead in a market. Gemma is packed off to Spence Academy for Young Ladies in England. She arrives in mourning and half convinced that her visions are something other than bad dreams.

At school Gemma is an outsider at first. She catches Felicity in a compromising situation, and that leads to a wary, uneasy bond with Felicity, Pippa and Ann.

An old diary, kept decades ago by a girl who has since died, sends the four to a hidden doorway in the caves near the school. Behind it lie the Realms, a magical place where each girl may claim whatever her heart wants most. The power there is unstable and dangerous. It is linked to an ancient group called the Order, and to a darker force that shadows Gemma's visions.

This is historical fantasy in a gothic boarding school setting, following a close circle of girls and their shifting loyalties. The mood is uneasy and shadowed, with grief at the start and rising danger once the girls begin to take what they desire, because every wish carries a heavy price. It is the first book in the Gemma Doyle trilogy.