A nicely creepy, dark and rather disturbing YA (and why is this considered YA, except that the protagonist is a teen?) murder mystery with fantastical elements, set in Victorian times. I liked Faith; she wants so much more out of life than what society - and especially her mother - will allow. She adores her father, who barely takes notice of her. Her younger brother, so much less brave and smart than she, gets all the attention and praise lavished on him while Faith is relegated to babysitting. Despite that she still loves her brother too. And yet, she's constantly angry, boiling underneath, because of this denial of who she is, who she could be, who she wants to be. Faith's determination to find out who murdered her father, to do the things she's not allowed to do, to "be a bad example", is wonderfully told by Hardinge. Everyone in the story has both good and bad elements, and the murderer is someone I didn't expect.

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