When you return to school shortly, consider yourself lucky you're not orphan, Stella Montgomery whose horrid aunts have sent her to the grimly strict boarding school, Wakestone Hall so she can learn how to be obedient. The school has rules for everything such as 'No Girl Shall Traverse the Main Staircase under any Circumstance' which poor Stella broke in the first ten minutes of arriving and had to copy the rule fifty times in her best handwriting. Girls who misbehave are sent to the mysterious Headmistress, Miss Garnet who has a cruel secret.
Wakestone Girls, so straight and true,
Always do as we should do.
Marching on with main and might,
Always Righteous, Always Right.
When Stella's new friend Ottilie goes missing, Stella and fellow student, Agapanthus are determined to find her. With help from Joe, a young scrapper, the girls track down the evil Gabbro brothers, but there are more mysteries to unravel. Why did the Gabbro brothers kidnap Ottilie and who are they working for? How is their cruel Headmistress, Miss Garnet and her greedy brother, Thaddeus involved? In their search for answers, Stella and her friends journey deep underground to The Wake where Stella bravely faces her nightmare, the King of the Mountain and makes a discovery that will both give her answers and change her life forever.
Wakestone Hall is the third and final book in Judith Rossell's Stella Montgomery series. I enjoyed being transported once again to the world of Victorian England and sharing another adventure solving mysteries with Stella and her friends with an ending that is also a happy new beginning for Stella...
Being a big fan of the colour purple, I loved the purple text and illustrations, stunning purple endpapers and purple ribbon bookmark! Judith has a magnificent colour illustration of Wakestone Hall on the front cover and the book is filled with Judith's intricately detailed illustrations of characters, places and objects of the Victorian time.
Happy reading!
