Bridget Collins "The Betrayals"

 

London, The Borough Press, 2020

There are times when you feel more alone here than if you were the last person left on earth.

Montverre is an all-boys academy located somewhere in the mountains where students are trained in a complicated, elaborate and mysterious game called the grand jeu, and the government is not exactly happy about the newly elected Magister Ludi, Claire Dryden. 

Léo Martin is a government official who has just lost his job and who is sent back to his old school to “redeem himself”. He is supposed to keep an eye on Claire and report back on her every move. Léo has no other choice but to agree, though he is reluctant to return to his old school – too many memories lurk in the shadows.

When Léo first meets Claire, he has a strange feeling that he has met her before, only he is sure he hasn’t. Both of them have secrets, both live their lives based on lies, and the closer they get to the academy’s legendary Midsummer Games, the greater the possibility of those well-kept secrets coming to light.

Let me start by saying I absolutely loved this book, even though for some reason I didn’t think I would. I’m a big fan of Bridget Collins’ other novel The Binding, and I guess the premise of The Betrayals just didn’t seem as promising to me. The first time I picked it up, I read about 20 pages and gave up. It seemed slow and a little bit boring. But boy was I wrong.

The Betrayals is definitely a slow-paced novel, but it is far from boring. It takes a while to get into the plot but once I did, I fell completely under the spell of this book. Set in a gloomy and mysterious boarding school, it is gripping, enchanting and magical without having any actual magic in it. The magic in this novel is more like everyday magic, the one you find in little things in life – in friendships, in doing what you love and what you’re good at, in falling unexpectedly in love… It is heartbreaking and heartwarming at the same time. It is a book where people fall in love with people, where they fall in love with each other’s intelligence, kindness and character. It is a book where love really is (just) love.

Honestly, I am in awe of Bridget Collins’ brain. She creates worlds without having to describe them excessively and yet she is so elaborate in her writing. Her vocabulary / writing style is so beautiful, and I thoroughly enjoyed the intelligent brain games in the book, despite the fact I probably didn’t actually understand even half of her thought process. She manages to be so gentle and ruthless at the same time, and the way she hides all those subtle hints to events that get revealed later in the plot plays tricks on your mind and is truly admirable. 

I don’t know if I loved this book so much partly because I went in with such low expectations, but I hope that’s not the case. I know how cheesy and ridiculous it sounds but Bridget Collins has bewitched me, and I would buy her next novel in a heartbeat. I think the biggest takeaway from The Betrayals is how we should always be very careful with our good deeds because even if you think you’re only doing what’s best for someone, you might accidentally cause them harm or even ruin their life. So be as careful as you can and maybe trust other people to know what’s best for them without having to interfere.

I would recommend The Betrayals to everyone who loves books with gloomy and mysterious boarding school vibes, and I think it is an especially fitting read for a dark cold autumn or winter day. It reads like the most gorgeous poetry and is at times a little bit hard to understand (unless you’re maybe some sort of Maths genius) but I honestly think it’s worth giving it a try.

Tonight the moonlight makes the floor of the Great Hall into a game board. Every high window casts a bright lattice, dividing the hall into black and white, squares and margins. The ranks of wooden benches face one another on three sides; in the space between them, there is nothing but straight shadows on stone, an abstract in pen and ink. It is as still as a held breath.

There is someone watching her. She spins round, damp-faced, off balance. But the doorway is empty.

Then the clock strikes, making her jump; and gradually – barely audible at first, until it broadens and swells into cacophony – a chorus of young male voices trickles along the passage, joking and arguing as if they’ve never heard of the divine or the grand jeu or death. 

“You wait for it to show up. Every mood. Every nightmare. Every time you’re happy. You think, is this it? Is this how it begins? Today I can’t sleep for thinking about the grand jeu, tomorrow I’ll be setting a library on fire. Slitting my wrists. I don’t want to be a doomed genius.”