Jenn Bennett’s The Lady Rogue is a fun historical romp with a feminist twist

Jenn Bennett’s The Lady Rogue is a fun historical adventure with a much-needed feminist twist: This time, it’s a girl finding the treasures and saving the day.

Ever wish you could see a story like National Treasure or The Mummy, but from a female perspective? Well, then Jenn Bennett’s The Lady Rogue may very well feel like the answer to a prayer.

This novel takes all the tropes of a standard adventure story – from the cursed objects and mysterious hooded figures tracking the good guys through faraway cities – and flips them upside down by applying them all to a female character.

Set in 1938, The Lady Rogue follows the story of Theodora “Theo” Fox, daughter and sometimes partner of her famed adventurer father, Richard. But when he leaves her behind in Turkey during a hunt for a mysterious bone ring that allegedly belonged to one Vlad the Impaler, she knows something is very wrong.

The arrival of her childhood best friend – and former maybe boyfriend – Huck confirms her fears, as he’s got both her father’s travel journal and explicit orders to make sure she gets home safely.

(Spoiler alert you can probably guess: That’s not at all what happens.)

Instead, Theo and Huck find themselves on a cross-country trip of Europe in search of the missing Richard, while attempting to solve the years-long mystery of Vlad’s ring and the cursed powers it may or may not possess along the way.

Full of lush descriptions and painfully beautiful scenery, there are parts of this story that read as nothing so much as a tourist brochure for Romania. But the in-depth, detailed setting makes the world of The Lady Rogue come alive, draping everything in the sort of atmospheric mist and darkness that befits a Bram Stoker novel.

Huck and Theo’s journey puts both of them in some fairly dire situations. The two run from assailants on the Orient Express, meet some strange locals who may or may not be witches, search for lost relics and attempt to ascertain just how Richard’s treasure hunt went so wrong. It’s an exhilarating, page-turner of an adventure, and the fact that it’s centered on a female character just makes things all the more exciting.

Bennett is best known in the world of YA fiction for her contemporary romances, but she definitely brings her feminist sensibility with her in her first foray into fantasy adventure.

Theo is an instantly appealing heroine from the moment we first meet her, hunting ghosts in an Istanbul market and getting into scrapes with the local police. She’s brave, smart, and loves adventure, but most importantly she refuses to quietly accept the restrictions society attempts to place upon her because of her gender. According to Theo, there’s no reason she can’t be every bit the successful adventurer her father is. And you know what? She’s not wrong.

As Theo digs into the history of Vlad Tepes in the hopes of tracking down what happened to his possibly magical ring, we all get a lesson in the story of fifteenth century Wallachia, and the brutality at the heart of the legend that would ultimately become Dracula. And she gets to show off just how smart she is – cracking hidden ciphers in her father’s journal, solving puzzles and making connections between various peripheral figures her father once met or referenced in his writings. And, well, let’s just say as one of the only people in this story who believed in the occult before it started? She’s proven right on more than one occasion.

Throughout The Lady Rogue Theo is allowed to demonstrate just how capable she is as a treasure hunter at the same time the story reminds us that she’s also an occasionally petulant teen with loads of privilege who’s never really struggled for anything. Though her father has been distant and over protective since her mother passed away, one gets the sense that Theo hasn’t exactly been a model child herself, given how desperate she appears to be to prove herself to him.

Theo’s relationship with Huck is equally fraught and much of the novel is spent on them working out the things that have gone wrong between them. Thankfully, this is a YA novel with nary a love triangle in sight, so the story is allowed to really delve into the issues between the two of them, which involve family issues, broken trust, and the fact that the two of them weren’t speaking before Huck showed up in Turkey. However, Theo and Huck are charming together, with an easy chemistry and fun banter between them. Even if they do feel a little inevitable as a couple at times, they’re easy to root for and enjoy.

By the end of the story, the idea of following the treasure hunting adventures of one Miss Theodora Fox feels like a no-brainer. She’s a natural. Here’s hoping we get to see her solve a few more historical mysteries at some point.

The Lady Rogue is available now.