In essence the book turned from a deeply compelling character exploration of both Claire and Leo, both of whom full of anger, guilt, pride and possibly more guilt as they begin to develop feelings for the other and all those complexities within that, to a sort of slightly darker rom-com plot. From the author of the divinely dark The Binding and several acclaimed novels for young adults, Bridget Collins’s The Betrayals murmurs with menace and the mystery of the grand jeu, an arcane intellectual game that melds music, maths, poetry and philosophy. The novel’s world - at once familiar and strange - is conjured with crystalline clarity and populated by a cast of distinctly charismatic characters. Set in an unnamed disintegrating European country in the 1930s, the story begins when thirty-two-year-old Leo is removed from his post as Minister for Culture and exiled to his former academy, the exclusive Montverre. Here the nation’s cleverest are schooled in the art of the grand jeu, and here Leo is forced to face tragedy from his past as he forms an unsettling connection with the academy’s new female Magister Ludi. Part homage to Hermann Hesse’s The Glass Bead Game, this boasts a compellingly jolting plot that will keep readers on their toes, and a delicious dénouement - it’s a delight for lovers of literary conundrums. But I absolutely love the scene in which they parted! Because it was absolutely obvious that they still loved each other, and because Léo finally realized that, because he loved Claire, he had to respect her decisions and not force his will on her. Where I was a little more let down was in the characters. Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t actively hate them. I just didn’t quite connect with them in the same way as I did in The Binding. While other readers may find this to be a genuinely intriguing read, I'm not all that taken by the novel's forced air of mystery. The writing too left something to be desired (with phrases such as "her heart trembled in her bones as if they're hollow" and "her heart is beating so hard the rest of her feels unreal: she could be floating in space, a ghost with a thundering pulse").

Montverre has changed since he studied there, even allowing a woman, Claire Dryden, to serve in the grand jeu’s highest office of Magister Ludi. When Léo first sees Claire he senses an odd connection with her, though he’s sure they have never met before. The book alludes to and explores a variety of mental health. The sense of loss of a loved one and the grief left behind, deteriorating mental health, the impact and consequence of bullying and subsequent suicide. All of these points in the overarching theme were handled and established extremely well, where when appropriate and provoked enough, had my heart heavy and my blood boiling. There are also chapters from a POV known only as The Rat - but these serve a high relevance and are worth paying attention to. The Betrayals is a deeply subjective experience: to all readers of my review, it’s a personal conclusion as to whether the pay off is worth the work. For this reader, the payoff was most certainly worth the wait. The distant and slow pace is a necessary evil to appreciate this clever story that is a true masterclass of unwrapping a beguiling mystery. I never saw the twists, which was thoroughly delightful and made the book entirely worthwhile. Although, the sorrowful ending sadly took the jubilant feel from the climax, which was disappointing as I felt a more upbeat feel was needed after the leaden bleak weight throughout. I know it's really farfetched, and I also know there's no chance of it being true, but I just wanted to share it because it occurred to me :)So I turned out to be kinda right with Carfax and Dryden being the same in a way, but I had some mad theories.But for those of you who have already read it – let’s get into details! WARNING – MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD!!! DO NOT READ ANY FURTHER IF YOU HAVEN’T READ THE BOOK YET AND DON’T WANT TO BE SPOILED!!! These are the times that scare her the most, the beginnings and endings: this is when the world is most unpredictable.” The magic system in The Betrayals is utterly believable without ever being fully revealed to the reader. Bridget Collins has a way of throwing readers into the deep end when it comes to world building. She leaves her readers to piece things together for themselves, and it’s a sink-or-swim approach that really works for me. Somehow, having to figure things out and fill in the gaps in my knowledge with a combination of guesswork and blind faith makes the world feel far more tangible to me than it would if everything had been neatly explained.

The part of this that I was the most regretful about, was that in the end there was no happy ending, per se. It leaves off incomplete but realistic, and the leaving the ending up to me is great, but not always, so I was really glad with the execution of it in this book. Montverre is first seen through the eyes of a gothic character known only as The Rat: rapacious, fearful, famished, and possibly not a rat at all. “Tonight the moonlight makes the floor of the Great Hall into a game board.” The Rat observes an anomalous figure in white, the “female-male, the odd one out” wandering in the shadows. By a fluke, a brilliant woman, Claire Dryden, has been appointed Magister Ludi, Master of the Game. I had a bit of a theory while reading this that came mostly true, and I'd like to include it here So, it's from my BR thread: 55% Speaking of the role of women in society, though, I also really want to talk about The Rat! Or more specifically, her mother and Emile. At first, when there were hints that Emile knew someone in the servants’ quarters, I was inclined to like him. After all, he was also the only one who still reached out to Léo after he had been exiled. Surely, he couldn’t be too bad? But then, when he met past-Léo in the servants’ wing that one night and when he started planting doubts in Léo’s minds about his relationship with Carfax, I started seriously disliking him. The more we saw of him, it became apparent what a manipulative and egotistical jerk he was, and it didn’t come as a surprise to me at all that The Rat’s mother had killed herself because of him. [Although I actually thought for a very long time that The Rat was probably Emile’s daughter and that her mother killed herself once Emile found out The Rat existed – so my sleuthing skills did get a few things wrong 🧐😜]

The plot is extremely slow with very descriptive writing style (esp The Rat’s POV), so many things / words are not explain well you just need to accept the way they are without knowing muchabout them, that makes my reading journey felt so painful When the pieces started to be put together, the image the reader has for a while is that Claire is the sister of Carfax, Léo's schooltime love. The ever-constant comparisons between Claire and Carfax in these scenes felt extremely uncomfortable on a first read through. It seemed very... odd, to have a bisexual protagonist fall for a female character on the basis that they heavily resemble their male sibling. I don't necessarily think that a plot with that premise is inherently an issue, but the way it was handled in this narrative left a bad taste in my mouth. It felt questionable. Montverre has changed since he studied there, even allowing a woman, Claire Dryden, to serve in the grand jeu's highest office of Magister Ludi. When Leo first sees Claire he senses an odd connection with her, though he's sure they have never met before.

Genre: Ummm – I don’t know? 😅 If I had to describe it, I’d probably call it a very character-driven dark academia/alternate history novel… But that doesn’t really do this book justice! Let’s just say it has a bit of everything, and is literary fiction at its finest 😉 The setting, specifically the boarding school, it sounds like an intriguing and magical place and I wish my copy had some kind of illustration of the school. Dizzyingly wonderful . . . a perfectly constructed work of fiction, with audacious twists . . . Collins plays her own game here with perfect skill.” — The Times (UK) So yeah, I really liked getting to see some of the struggles Claire went through, and what a self-righteous mansplainer Léo became when he was confronted with them 😁 I really like that Bridget Collins didn’t decide to make Léo a modern-thinking ally, but showed that he, just like everyone else, was a product of the society he lived in. Although he loved Claire and did eventually come around to seeing her point of view at least a little bit, I think it was probably impossible for him to truly change how he viewed women deep down. Claire was the exception, brilliant because she was Claire, but, at least at first, still inferior because she was a woman. Why should he have questioned that she would want to kiss him? How could she truly understand Montverre, as a woman who had never been there herself? It took him to realize that she was Carfax, one of the smartest men he’d ever known, to truly see her as an equal, and to give her the option of making choices that affected both of them. I'm sorry I didn't love this one, I really wanted to. There just wasn't enough substance to make this a story worth reading for me. I feel like you can have a long book OR a slow-burn book, but having both with consistently little payoff is just overwhelmingly dull and unsatisfying. I wish I could at least write more about what the book was about but honestly, I feel as though I was never told myself.

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I wanted to read The Betrayals based on my love of The Binding. This too promised a historical fantasy with a slow Leo’s former mistress: she’s supposed to be a significant, emotional pull for Leo and yet we don’t spend a lot of time with her (barely a chapter, not a happy one either) and yet how Leo goes on about her at times I often asked the book, why, why are we talking about her again – you haven’t given me one good reason to care for her so why do you keep mentioning her? The grand jeu is an inexplicable and indescribable game and the students of Montverre Academy are tasked with creating it.

Both Leo and Claire have built their lives on lies. And as the legendary Midsummer Game, the climax of the year, draws closer, secrets are whispering in the walls... About This Edition ISBN: In a speculative world not too dissimilar from our own, is a boarding school for boys who study the grand jeu a game that encompasses maths, music, philosophy and religion.It's so hard to write this review without any spoilers. One of the many reasons the synopsis is so confusing if it had even the tiniest bit more detail you would be spoiled. Leo meets the current Magister Ludi. The first ever woman to be given the position. But Leo can’t help feeling something drawing him to her. The characters too played their part in disallowing the reader to ever feel close to an understanding of their nature or their motives. Mysteries abounded and every figure that featured here was cloaked in their own share of them.