Moonstone

by Laura Purcell

First published 2024

Amazon

2.5(5)

After a scandal at the Vauxhall pleasure gardens, Camille is removed from fashionable society and sent to live with her reclusive godmother in the countryside. The household is governed by strict rules, especially the warning never to go outside after dark. Camille finds an unexpected ally in her godmother's daughter Lucy, whose sheltered life and fragile health seem to conceal as much as the surrounding woods.

As Camille and Lucy grow closer, unexplained deaths, claw marks and nocturnal howls turn social exile into a gothic mystery. Set in the Regency period, Purcell's young-adult novel blends werewolf folklore with a romance about two young women testing the boundaries imposed on them. The supernatural threat mirrors a society that treats female anger, desire and independence as dangerous forms of transgression.