Publisher: Little Brown,  August 29, 2023

Format: ebook

Pages: 336

Rating: 4/5 stars

Summary (Goodreads):

Eliza and Lister have never been this wide-awake in their lives, and the Slope, with its curtains drawn wide, is bright with starlight. They talk in whispers, not to disturb the maids who lie sleeping on the other side of the box room. The question Eliza’s been needing to ask swells like a great berry in her mouth, and all at once she’s not scared to let it out, not scared at all, not scared of anything . . .

In 1805, fourteen-year-old Eliza Raine is a school girl at the Manor School for Young Ladies in York. The daughter of an Indian mother and a British father, Eliza was banished to this unfamiliar country as a little girl. When she first stepped off the King George in Kent, Eliza was accompanied by her older sister, Jane, but now she boards alone at the Manor, with no one left to claim her. She spends her days avoiding the attention of her fellow pupils until, one day, a fearless and charismatic new student arrives at the school. The two girls are immediately thrown together and soon Eliza’s life is turned inside out by this strange and curious young woman.

Learned by Heart, Emma Donoghue’s mesmerising new novel, tells the heartbreaking story of the tangled lives of two women whose intense, and unlikely, relationship will change them for ever.

My Review:

Read if you like: sapphic romance, boarding school setting
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The book follows Eliza and Lister as they explore love and identity within the walls of their boarding school.
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Overall, I enjoyed the development of Eliza and her relationship with Lister. The beginning felt a bit slow and took me a bit to get into, but about halfway through I became fully invested in the story and wanted to learn what happened to Eliza. It is also cool that this is based on a true story and that Eliza and Lister were real people in history!
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Thank you Little Brown for the copy of this book.