5 YA Books for Sarah Waters Fans

Wildthorn, by Jane Eagland
This book will make you wonder why you ever read anything that ISN’T a darkly suspenseful Victorian drama. Seventeen-year-old Louisa is an intelligent, driven woman from a well-to-do family who wants to be a physician like her father. Until she’s shipped off to an insane asylum called Wildthorn Hall, that is. There she finds herself stripped of her freedom and even her name—she’s told she’s Lucy Childs, not Louisa Cosgrove—without ever being told why. As the story progresses, the mysteries stack up. Who’s responsible for Louisa’s imprisonment at Wildthorn? Why won’t anyone listen when she says she doesn’t belong here? But perhaps the biggest question of all is one for the readers. Is Louisa to be trusted? Is she really Louisa, as she claims to be? Or is she actually Lucy Childs after all?

A Great and Terrible Beauty, by Libba Bray
Gemma Doyle is a sixteen-year-old girl in Victorian England. As such, you’d think she’d be the furthest thing from relatable, but Libba Bray lends the character a certain sharp wit and self-effacing humor, both of which get her into trouble more often than not. After the death of her mother, Gemma finds herself at finishing school. There she’s forced to grapple with a rigid social hierarchy and an endless barrage of “ladylike” expectations. As if that’s not enough, Gemma’s beginning to have visions of another world, one that exists beyond this one, with its tea parties and petticoats. Full disclosure: it’s not until the final book in the trilogy that we learn of two female characters who have feelings for each other. But the trajectory of their relationship is so perfectly plotted that by the time we got to the big reveal, I was shouting, “I KNEW IT.”

Silhouette of a Sparrow, by Molly Beth Griffin
Garnet Richardson is sixteen in the 1920s when there’s a polio outbreak in her city. As a result, she’s shipped off to spend the summer in Excelsior, Minnesota, with her aunt and uncle. She’s a reserved teenager (and avid bird enthusiast) who hasn’t quite come out of her shell, but she resents the future laid out for her by her mother. It involves graduating high school, becoming someone’s wife, and settling into a life of traditional domesticity. She sees this summer as an opportunity to indulge herself one last time, to live free before she’s expected to marry a boy back home. Things change, however, when she meets the beautiful and enigmatic flapper Isabella. Molly Beth Griffin describes the trials and quiet triumphs of Garnet with such effortlessly lyrical prose that, on finishing it, I simply wanted more.

Code Name Verity, by Elizabeth Wein
Now, I want to be upfront with you here: Code Name Verity features a relationship between two young women (a spy and a pilot during World War II) whose relationship is never said to be anything more than platonic. But their love for each other is so passionate, the story’s twists and turns so wrenching, the historical setting so exquisitely crafted, I simply couldn’t not put this one on the list. Verity is a spy, captured by the Germans. They’re forcing her to tell them everything she knows about the British war effort. As she pens her confession, knowing they’ll kill her as soon as she finishes, she describes her life, her involvement with the war, her friendship with the pilot Maddie, and how the two of them ended up in enemy territory.

Liberty’s Fire, by Lydia Syson
The city is Paris, the year is 1871. Zephyrine is sixteen years old and swept up in the revolutionary politics of a country suddenly divided. But the story doesn’t belong solely to Zephyrine; she shares the narrative spotlight with three others. There’s Anatole, a violinist who’s just as passionate about the current political landscape as she is. There’s his roommate, Jules, a rich American photographer. And then there’s Marie, an opera singer who takes Zephyrine under her wing after the death of Zephyrine’s grandmother. Even if you know nothing about the Commune of Paris or the Franco-Prussian War (before reading this, I certainly didn’t), Lydia Syson’s incredible worldbuilding will have you feeling as if you’re right there with them—running through the streets and crying revolution while Paris is burning.