The Betrayal of Natalie Hargrove

November 16, 2009
In debut novelist Kate's racy gothic tale, set in the town of Palmetto, S.C., high school senior Natalie—a ruthless, sharp-tongued queen bee who has worked hard to bury her roots on the wrong side of town—dreams of being elected to her school's Palmetto Court alongside her boyfriend, Mike. But the night of the bawdy annual Mardi Gras party, the couple ties drunk party-boy J.B. to a tree as a prank, to sabotage his chances at beating Mike to becoming Palmetto Prince. When J.B. is found dead, an investigation ensues, and Natalie ropes Mike into scheming to preserve her fairy tale plans. Natalie's acid perspective drives Kate's deliciously twisted story. “I've always known girls from the South could get a bad rap for being kind of saccharine, but Palmetto should have taken out a patent on its own brand of artificiality,” she muses. “These girls could change their attitudes more quickly than their clothes and never look worse for the wear.” It's a philosophy that Natalie exemplifies perfectly, but by book's end, Kate demonstrates that there's more to Natalie than meets the eye. Ages 14–up.

September 15, 2009
Grades 9-12 Natalie Hargrove has got it made. Shes gorgeous, in love with football hunk Mike, and a shoo-in to be elected her high schools Palmetto Princess. The only fly in her ointment is J. B., whos giving Mike a run for his money as Palmetto Prince. After J. B. gets sloshed during the students annual Mardis Gras bash, Natalie engineers a little prank to make sure J. B. is embarrassed. But in proper Lois Duncan fashion, the prank goes hideously awry, and soon Natalie and Mike find themselves sucked into an increasingly dangerous cover-up. Author Kate revels in her duplicitous South Carolinian setting, a faux-friendly world where good breeding hides behavior so bad you expect Anne Rices vampires to emerge from the Spanish moss. Instead we get vamps of a different stripe, none of whom is more enjoyable than the bitchy, bratty Natalie. Lots of adjectives can be applied to this debut effortmean, smutty, decadentand all of them should be taken as compliments. An abrupt ending doesnt much diminish the guilty pleasures.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2009, American Library Association.)