10 new YA novels to make your holidays bright this December

Dangerous Alliance – Jennieke Cohen

Subtitled “An Austentacious Romance,” Jennieke Cohen’s Dangerous Alliance is described as Austen meets The Gentlemen’s Guide to Vice and Virtue. Honestly, that right there is probably enough to get us to pick it up, if we’re honest. And that’s before we get to the part where it sounds like a ton of fun.

Set in 1817, the story revolves around Lady Victoria Ashton, a young girl who appears as though she has everything. Her older sister being successfully married, Victoria’s situation seems stable. She’s got plenty of time to wander the family estate and indulge in her love of reading. (Turns out that Victoria is a rather ravenous fan of the works of one Miss Jane Austen.)

But when her family is unexpectedly disgraced, young Vicky must enter the London Season, on the hunt for a rich man to marry. Armed solely with her knowledge of characters and stereotypes, “Vicky” must attempt to navigate the world of ladies and rogues she knows only from fiction. Can she succeed? Even when it starts to look as though her life might be in danger.

We’ve seen variations on this premise before in fiction – but it almost always takes place in a modern-day setting. The idea that Vicky might be trying to navigate the drawing rooms of English society as something of a contemporary of Austen’s is an intriguing concept.

The official synopsis offers a little more information.

"Lady Victoria Aston has everything she could want: an older sister happily wed, the future of her family estate secure, and ample opportunity to while her time away in the fields around her home. But now Vicky must marry—or find herself and her family destitute. Armed only with the wisdom she has gained from her beloved novels by Jane Austen, she enters society’s treacherous season. Sadly, Miss Austen has little to say about Vicky’s exact circumstances: whether the roguish Mr. Carmichael is indeed a scoundrel, if her former best friend, Tom Sherborne, is out for her dowry or for her heart, or even how to fend off the attentions of the foppish Mr. Silby, he of the unfortunate fashion sensibility. Most unfortunately of all, Vicky’s books are silent on the topic of the mysterious accidents cropping up around her…ones that could prevent her from surviving until her wedding day."

Dangerous Alliance is available now.