Chosen for a 2018's POPSUGAR's reading challenge: "a book written by a woman using a male pseudonym". Barnard is, of course, Louisa May Alcott. If I remember correctly, it is this sort of fiction that she had always wanted to be writing. "The "moral pap for the young" style of Little Women and its sequels was something she was good at, but didn't particularly care one way or another for it. Alcott was steered to write didactic children's fiction with the assurance that if she did, her aspiring author father would also receive a publishing contract.

Regardless, if you've read Little Women, this its amoral, cynical cousin. There's a family involved and that's where the similarities end. I have a big ol' literature boner for morally grey, manipulative characters - it's a flaw of mine that I have come to accept. Miss Jean Muir is a Top Bitch and really could work as a high level spy - she's got the acting, the disguise, the ability to achieve emotional rapport with an audience very, very well.

"Are you one of those fair deceivers?"

"You are complimentary," laughed the girl. "I am a witch, and one day my disguise will drop away and you will see me as I am: old, ugly, bad and lost. Beware of me in time. I've warned you. Now love me at your peril."