The Queen's spade

In 1850, Omoba Ina, a seven-year-old Yoruba princess, was renamed Sally Forbes Bonetta and presented to Queen Victoria as a gift. Raughley uses the outline of Ina's life to create a vivid and vicious historical revenge thriller. In 1862, Victorian society valued Sally for her beauty, intelligence, and moldability. She is living proof of the Queen's role as the "Savior of Barbarians." Secretly, Sally seethes with cold rage and plots to ruin the villains who brought her to England and the queen who controls her. Sally is making progress, aided by Rui, the sexy "criminal prince" of London's underworld, when Queen Victoria announces that Sally will marry and return to Lagos within the month. Sally punctuates her story with flashbacks to the death of her only friend, a boy who was thrown overboard on their voyage to England, and the abuse she suffered at a missionary school. This fierce indictment of colonialism is the first in a duology featuring an antiheroine who stops at nothing, and sacrifices everything, to gain her freedom.

A Yoruba princess targets her British "saviors" in this searing 1862-set duology opener from Raughley (the Bones of Ruin trilogy). Omoba Ina is just a child when Dahomey's king Ghezo murders her parents, the Egbado Clan's rulers, and enslaves her. Ina and fellow captive Ade are slated for sacrifice when Capt. Frederick Forbes of the British Royal Navy intervenes, convincing Ghezo to gift the kids to Queen Victoria. Ina proves "moldable" while aboard the HMS Bonetta, evidence that "even a slave can be transformed into a lady through Britain's compassion"; Ade, however, is thrown overboard. Before presenting Ina--renamed Sarah Forbes Bonetta--to her majesty, Forbes and friends measure Ina's head and make her dance naked. Ten years later, 18-year-old Ina aims to destroy those responsible for Ade's death and her debasement--Ina's "monstrous" godmother, Queen Victoria, included. Loosely inspired by the real Omoba Ina, Raughley's tempestuous tale spotlights the hypocrisy of postabolition Britain, "an unequal, unjust society filled with absurd ideologies." Formidable narrator Ina and her campaign foster drive and dread while the brilliantly rendered, racially diverse supporting cast injects conflict at every turn. Ages 14--up. Agent: Natalie Lakosil, Looking Glass Literary. (Jan.)

In this work inspired by real events and people, a Yoruba princess is kidnapped from West Africa as a gift for Queen Victoria. Omoba Ina, princess of the Egbado Clan, was enslaved in the Dahomey Kingdom after her parents were slaughtered. In 1850, Capt. Forbes of the British Royal Navy, commander of the HMSBonetta, arrives, taking the 7-year-old princess to England as a present for the queen, a gesture "meant to symbolize a victory of British abolitionism." Queen Victoria makes Ina her goddaughter, deciding she can be transformed into a lady. The renamed Sally Forbes Bonetta becomes a ward of the court with all its expectations, but she's never fully accepted because of her race. Now 18, Sally is done being used as propaganda for the realm, and she seeks revenge on all those who were involved in her kidnapping and imprisonment. But when Queen Victoria begins to suspect that Sally is behind her friends' recent "humiliation and ruin," she announces she's arranged for her to marry a certain Capt. Davies and return with him to Lagos. With her freedom in peril, Sally forms a partnership with an East End crime boss to finish the job. Raughley deftly weaves together information about and critiques of colonialism, power, and racism. The novel's true strength is Sally's character development: Arya Stark meets Starr Carter, weaving a web of destruction despite her grief in order to reclaim her dignity. Revenge, murder, and political intrigue will captivate readers. (bibliography)(Historical thriller. 14-18) Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.