Made Glorious

Made Glorious is a contemporary novel inspired by Shakespeare's Richard III. It follows Rory, a high school theater student at Bosworth Academy who will stop at nothing to win the lead in the senior musical. Like Richard III, she speaks directly to the audience, telling us exactly how far she is prepared to go. She freely admits that she is charming, conniving and ruthlessly ambitious, and that we will root for her even as she manipulates and endangers the people around her. Rory is also an underdog: a scholarship kid who gets teased about her weight. That makes it hard to believe she is as relentless as she says, and readers may keep hoping for some redemption and a payoff for their patience and dread. The book is intricately plotted. It combines several points of view with excerpts from scripts and an original musical score. Written by Lindsay Eagar, author of The Family Fortuna, it explores the dark side of high school theater and draws readers into complicity as they wince and cheer for a drama queen who cannot help being nasty in pursuit of her dreams.