Spoilers!
In a society guided by the constructs and mores of Society, women are relegated to peacocking instead of pontificating, bound to their reputations rather than reading bound books. In much of the 19th century, women’s place in society was to be good wives and mothers, and if they were to read, it was to better those roles. A woman who stepped outside of that, with reading and/or acting contrarily to their husband (or father or son even) was seen as besieged by “hysteria” and relegated to the insane asylum. Author Madeline Martin turns the Victoria era we’ve come to love in Bridgerton on its head in her 2025 book, The Secret Book Society, where the trappings of Society are instead nooses tightening on our heroic women characters who seek freedom and autonomy. By transporting us back to a time when it was scandalous to read and women were tightly controlled, Martin’s book made for a riveting and enthralling read — indeed, one of my favorite reads of the year. Martin’s writing is always so charming, warm, and welcoming, even when she’s writing about characters and occasions that make your skin burn with anger.
Lady Duxbury is a thrice-widowed high-Society woman, who is using her lofty position to empower similarly-minded women: those who want to read and be free from the yoke of a society intent on pigeonholing them, literally in some cases with insane asylums. She creates the titular Secret Book Society and invites women she think are inclined to accept and benefit from it, including Lady Lavinia (she actually invited her mother, but her mother thought Lavinia would benefit more being younger), Rose Wharton, and Mrs. Eleanor Clarke. Lavinia has the dark cloud over her head that her grandmother was confined to an insane asylum for “hysteria,” and fears she’ll be next, owing to her seeming inability to rein in her emotions and her penchant for reading. With her debutant younger sister about to enter Society, the last thing her father wants is Lavinia spoiling it with her “madness.” Rose is an America married to Thomas, whose dying brother is trying to “train” Thomas to be the next heir to the estate and family name, but the brother despise Rose and her crass Americanness (that awful accent!). As a result of the brother’s pressure, Thomas has been constricting Rose and their relationship isn’t what it once was. As for Eleanor, who has a young boy named William, she seems the prim and proper Society lady, but beneath her high-priced garments are bruises reflective of her husband, Cecil’s, abuse and control over her. The last bit of freedom she has (for now) is to control what she wears, otherwise, Cecil controls all. But Eleanor’s greatest fear is that William will become like Cecil. The theme throughout the book is that Eleanor, or any of them, would do anything for their child. For her part, as we learn through Eleanor’s reading of Lady Duxbury’s diary at her insistence, Lady Duxbury also faced a succession of controlling men, who virtually imprisoned her. It’s heavily implied she killed two of the three, and the last died of old age.
Empower these three women Lady Duxbury does, through not just book reading and the unfurling of their pent-up minds, but making them realize that to feel things men do (emotions, passions, disagreeing thoughts) is not hysterical, but normal. Lady Duxbury gets on her rightful soapbox at one point, saying, “Women are denigrated for reading, as through we’re committing moral sin. Books, after all, distract a mother and wife from her duties to her family. An informed wife might be disagreeable when she dares have opinions that differ from her husband. And we women are, after all, too frail to handle the excitement of a novel. Why, that might lead to bouts of hysteria.” Preach! The real hysteria and madness is that society ever treated women this way.
Moreover, like in the case of Lavinia, they can turn those passions into poetry, which Lady Duxbury encourages. Furthermore, Lady Duxbury brings someone in to teach them self-defense via hatpin fighting (essentially using their hatpin to stab someone!) and shows them her garden with all manner of poisonous flowers (well, like most things, in the right dose they heal and in the wrong dose, they can prove fatal). They also have a séance session, which is befitting of the time, even for these learned ladies.
Now, Martin didn’t make all the men of the book dreadful like Cecil. Even Lavinia’s father, who was restrictive at first, came around to Lavinia’s viewpoint on her macabre poetry and rescinded his threat to send her to the asylum. Likewise, Thomas realized how much he’d erred with Rose and derailed their marriage, saying he would let (which, still, ew) Rose do anything she’d like when they were home alone, including reading. He loves his “American rose.” But again, Cecil is not only dreadful, but gets worse as the book progresses and he tightens his control over Eleanor. On the night Eleanor is to escape from Cecil’s control with William, Cecil has her committed to an insane asylum. Fortunately, reflective of apparently a true story Martin unearthed from the time, Eleanor uses Rose’s boot she was wearing to alert her friends of her impending imprisonment at the asylum. Still, she spends nearly a week there, enduring unspeakable hellish conditions. She’s also drugged up with a sedative known as paraldehyde.
Thankfully, Lady Duxbury is determined to save Eleanor. Along with her resources, Lavinia also befriended another good man in the story, Mr. Wright, who is learning to be a solicitor from a mentor of his whose work is literally focused on freeing women from erroneous asylum imprisonments. Through these efforts, Eleanor is freed, but that’s not enough for her. She needs to rescue William. Despite not being at full strength and not having the best of plans — she has poison Lady Duxbury gave her (but that necessitates Cecil drinking it!), and she brings Davies, Lady Duxbury’s pugilist brute of a butler, with her (but he’s dispatched rather easily and quickly by Cecil) — Eleanor bravely goes back home to Cecil to retrieve her son. Cecil, as I said, dispatched Davies, and looked ready to kill Eleanor. In the midst of his tirade and violence, Cecil eats from a bowl of dates Lady Duxbury gifted him. She poisoned the dates, and shockingly, he didn’t eat them for the week or so after she gave them to him. He dies.
In a new diary entry for the book’s Epilogue. Lady Duxbury talks about how swimmingly everyone is getting along now: Rose had her child and is doing great with Thomas (and even the bitter brother acquiesced to her); Lavinia is the belle of the ball in Society and engaged to Mr. Wright; and Eleanor and William are safe from Cecil, of course. After writing her entry, a new woman who was supposed to join them in the Secret Book Society finally comes, ready to be empowered and liberated as well.
What a lovely, passionate rah-rah book for a woman’s right to read and think, the power of friendship (particularly the clarion call Martin offers that women ought to lift each other up instead of tear others down to gain positioning in Society), and how book clubs can be radicalizing in the best way, and comforting in the most necessary of ways. You are not alone. As long as books exist and the people who like to read them do so, you are not alone.
Milam's Musings 