When Ivy is forced to take the place of her dead sister, Scarlet, at Rookwood school, it isn't long before she realises that something seriously sinister is afoot. Scarlet has revealed the events leading up to her death in her diary - but to make sure that no one but Ivy would find the diary, she scattered the pages throughout the school. Ivy must decipher the clues in each diary section in order to find subsequent pages and work out what happened to her sister. At the same time, evil headmistress Miss Fox has instructed Ivy to literally be Scarlet. Ivy is sweet and passive but gradually takes on Scarlet’s fiery personality as she encounters the many enemies Scarlet made while at the school. It’s enormous fun to watch Ivy pretending to be Scarlet and successfully fooling everyone - well, almost everyone...
The story is jam-packed with several mysteries which had me turning pages at lightning speed. The threads all link together to reveal an astonishing resolution with a clever twist. Fans of Robin Stevens will love this - although for me it actually has an edge over ‘Murder Most Unladylike’ as I hooked into the intrigue much faster. Book 5 is due out at Christmas, so if you love this as much as me, there's a whole load more mysteries to unravel...
