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Random Reviews and Ramblings from Redcliffe

Her Majesty’s League of Remarkable Young Ladies – Alison D. Stegert

Sue Warren
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Chicken House

May 2024

ISBN: 9781915026095

ISBN-10: 1915026091

Published: 1st May 2024

RRP: $19.99

It’s always such a pleasure to review a friend’s book. It is even more so when that friend is a near-neighbour, Sunshine Coast writer Alison D. Stegert. I have been waiting for quite a long time to get my hands on this one, especially as it was released in the UK last year, but finally it arrived! and what a ripping time I had reading it!

Your fans of such as Enola Holmes and Murder Most Unladylike will be gobbling this one up with fervour. It has the same classy slick style about it with that great mix of Victoriana plus some humour and sass.

Winnie (Winifred) Weatherby is utterly bored and frustrated at her rigid and respectable girls’ school (I feel her pain!) and is often chastised for her lack of adherence to the required behaviours of a ‘proper young lady’. She is far more interested in tinkering with her inventions, and continuing to help her inventor father with his own ground-breaking device. Her dream is to enter her own Very Promising Invention at the World Fair in Paris but plans appear to be in danger when her father goes missing, a mysterious stranger seems far too interested in her ideas and inventions and to top things off she seems to have got herself entangled in some secret society.

As it happens, Winnie becomes the newest recruit in HM Queen Victoria’s league of young lady spies, where her talent for inventing sees her taking on the role of QM in charge of inventing devices, both protective and destructive, and weapons for use of her comrades in the League.

Winnie soon discovers that it’s not just her father’s safety in jeopardy but that of the Royal Family as well. She and her fellow young ladies are charged with protecting the royals and pursuing the threads of the mystery to find the perpetrator/s behind the plotting.

It’s a glorious mix of STEM, steampunk, spycraft, and sisterhood which readers from around 12 upwards with a bent for mystery and history will thoroughly enjoy. My own very personal observation, and minor objection, is that the ‘handwriting’ fonts used for the letters throughout was quite hard on the eyes (and I don’t think just because they’re old!).

Ali has definitely taken the promotion of her book to heart with enthusiasm as she has investigated and experimented with Victorian fashion, has her own faux chateleine both of which I hope she wears the next time there is a literary lunch date!

This is a terrific new addition for your collection and well worth some book-talking at your own readers’ group if you have one in your library or for a First Chapter Friday session.

A big 🔎🔎🔎🔎 recommendation for readers from upper primary onwards.

Feeling steampunkish

Ask the Author: Alison D. Stegert talks about Her Majesty’s League of Remarkable Young Ladies

4 responses to “Her Majesty’s League of Remarkable Young Ladies – Alison D. Stegert”

  1. Alison D. Stegert Avatar
    Alison D. Stegert

    Thank you Sue! I love your wrap up of the story, and I appreciate both the review and the feedback on the handwriting fonts. I’d been hoping to have the opportunity to talk to someone about this stylistic choice.

    The idea was to add “artefacts” to the story, such as letters, news articles, telegrams, telautographs (read the book to learn more!), and even a snippet of mirror writing. It was quite tricky to give each person an individual handwriting for their correspondence and keep it legible. We eliminated a heap of font options, because certain letters were too confusing.

    I fully relate to your comment about font changes being tiring on the eyes. I experience a bit of eye fatigue when I read graphic novels for this reason. In my case, it’s not only the font style, but also the length of lines, kerning, etc., that come into play.

    Thanks for the chance to discuss this element of the book. I’m absolutely chuffed to be able to say I’ve been reviewed here by you. I finally feel I’ve fully “arrived” on the the Australian literary scene.

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  2. Sue Warren Avatar
    Sue Warren

    And I think as well that lots of kids have problems reading ‘cursive’ or different fonts. I love the idea of incorporating faux realia – it can work really well – but in trying to replicate ‘handwriting’ (and, no doubt, try to evoke some sense of the period) I think it slowed things down. Speaking for myself only, I gave up each letter after a few lines and just used contextuality to work out the gist. And thank you for that last comment! So appreciative xx

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  3. Alison D. Stegert Avatar
    Alison D. Stegert

    P.S., I forgot to say I love your Steampunk outfit!

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  4. Sue Warren Avatar
    Sue Warren

    It does double duty for when I’ve been Madame Pince (Hogwarts librarian) – the hat was originally just a plain top hat but I butchered an extravagant witch’s hat I had to make it more steampunk 🙂 – thank you!! x

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