Reviews - A Little Trickerie

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324 reviews for:

A Little Trickerie

Rosanna Pike

4.12 AVERAGE

lorna_stirz's review against another edition

4.5

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny mysterious reflective relaxing sad tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

phodosanatka's review against another edition

4.25

adventurous emotional hopeful inspiring medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

amongst_the_bookstacks's review against another edition

4.25

adventurous challenging funny hopeful inspiring lighthearted medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.25

Listen, I don’t know what the Women's Prize judges were thinking this year, but I am a bit miffed that A Little Trickerie didn’t make it onto the shortlist.

Rosanna Pike serves up a wildly original romp through Tudor England with a narrator who might have lived in 1503 but definitely curses like she’s been raised on Twitter and Red Bull. Enter Tibb Ingleby: orphan, vagrant, schemer, pearl-haired oddity, and the beating, bleeding heart of this book. She’s like if Fleabag ran away with a troupe of medieval misfits and decided to rewrite the gospels with more sass and fewer morals.

The plot? A picaresque trail of trickery and tears. Tibb scrapes her way through England’s hedgerows and hellholes collecting strays - each one a story, a wound, a miracle. It’s “found family” gold: a cast of queers, outcasts, runaways, and fools who build something tender from the scraps. It’s also laugh-out-loud funny in places, bawdy in others, and occasionally devastating. The tone swings between “we love to see it” hijinks and “oh no they did not” emotional gut punches, but somehow it mostly lands.

Now, let's talk anachronism. Tibb is many things: brilliant, broken, brave, but she is also very much a 21st-century gal trapped in a 16th-century meat grinder. Her worldview feels just a touch too self-aware. Her politics, speech, and general vibes are more TikTok than anything a real Tudor teen would conjure up. This doesn’t ruin the book, but if you like your historical fiction soaked in primary sources and authenticity, Tibb might grind your gears with her thoroughly modern soul.

Still, the voice is irresistible. Pike writes with real verve, peppering the text with language that’s vivid without being pastiche. Even when the plot wobbles or the historical details blur into aesthetic suggestion, the sheer chutzpah of the prose keeps you going.

My only real critique? The resolution of certain traumas is a bit... storybook. There’s a convenient wrapping-up of horrors that doesn’t quite honour the weight they carried. But I get it - this is a novel about survival as much as suffering. And if the ending leans on fantasy, well, who are we to deny Tibb a happy ending after the world has thrown every horror it could at her?

Bottom line: a standout protagonist who’s half trickster, half angel, and all chaos. A flawed, fabulous debut - and more than deserving of a prize nod.