[note note_color=”#3a2458″ text_color=”#ffffff”]That Inevitable Victorian Thing by E.K. Johnston• October 3, 2017 • Dutton Books for Young Readers (Penguin)
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Set in a near-future world where the British Empire was preserved, not by the cost of blood and theft but by effort of repatriation and promises kept, That Inevitable Victorian Thing is a novel of love, duty, and the small moments that can change people and the world.
Victoria-Margaret is the crown princess of the empire, a direct descendant of Victoria I, the queen who changed the course of history two centuries earlier. The imperial practice of genetically arranged matchmaking will soon guide Margaret into a politically advantageous marriage like her mother before her, but before she does her duty, she’ll have one summer incognito in a far corner of empire. In Toronto, she meets Helena Marcus, daughter of one of the empire’s greatest placement geneticists, and August Callaghan, the heir apparent to a powerful shipping firm currently besieged by American pirates. In a summer of high-society debutante balls, politically charged tea parties, and romantic country dances, Margaret, Helena, and August discover they share an unusual bond and maybe a one in a million chance to have what they want and to change the world in the process —just like the first Queen Victoria.[/note]
First sentence: “Helena Marcus had not given much thought to her marriage.”
History has been rewritten. The British Empire is as strong as ever. This Inevitable Victorian Thing explores a world where everybody in the British Royal family—after Queen Victoria that is—married outside the European Royal family, creating diverse, multi-racial people that you see in the characters, and where old traditions like debutante balls and arranged marriages meet the new like genetic technology.
Welcome to the new, semi sci-fi British Empire.
