I have been expecting a book like this for a long time, being an ice queen age gap lesfic lover and a sucker for amazing plots. It is definitely unique in lesfic to have a novel about a beautiful ice queen of a headmistress who comes to rescue a century long lasting exclusive academy called the Three Dragons and fall for one of the teachers, in a spiderweb of situations and a complicated plot which explores the main characters and leads them towards the highest peaks of their development.

”The Headmistress” by Milena Mckay is an age gap ice queen lesbian romance with a magical whim surrounding Dragons, involving  Magdalene and Sam, two women at different stages in life and having different ages, who even though they seem worlds apart, they share more than just their attraction for each other, mainly the salvation of Dragons.

With every page, the story awakes in my minds eye, a combination of Harry Potter’s magic Hogwarts and the innuendo of Miriam and Karen from the Children’s Hour and then, with every chapter further in the main characters’ lives and with every flashback from Sam and Magdalene’s first encounter, Milena Mckay transposes me into the fascinating, almost magical world of Dragons, blackened with the hatred of the other characters for Magdalene and intertwined with the main character’s attraction, surrounded by so many secrets.

The title is excelently chosen, sounds as a threat coming to Dragons, but it actually is a change and yet, somehow, predates the headmistress’s first lines, when she arrives at Dragons :

„My name is Magdalene Nox. I am the new Headmistress of Three Dragons. And you are all fired.”

The cover is beautiful, enshadowing the headmistress’s silhouette, half of her head being tranfixed into a little part of the Dragons’s academy, suggesting that Magdalene has only Dragons on her mind and also,that she is the change needed at Dragons.

I love the author’s attention to all the amazing details that make this book great.

I enjoyed how she played with the readers by creating classic ice queen disscussions and situations like the one when Sam suggests Magdalene couldn’t do a Miranda Pristley. Hillarious.

I, also, adored Willoughby, the ginger cat mascot of Dragons with extensive mouse duties who didn’t let anyone pet him but the new headmistress and they soon become inseparable.

The story is told at third person and very much seen through Sam’s eyes.

It begins with a torrid love affair between a young an unexperienced Sam and a beautiful mature redhead she meets at the bar of her hotel in Manhattan when  she attends a conference in New York. The attraction is immediate, Sam is smitten and so seems the misterious redhead, the sex is hot and steamy, yet it is ment to be a one-night stand, as the readhead won’t even tell Sam her name.

Flashbacks of the Sam’s one night stand with the enigmatic redhead which start the first chapters in the book are a wonderful addition to the storyline. And so are the names of the chapters, quite suggestive.

This one hot night in New York with the misterious mature redhead has changed her life forever. Samantha Threadneedle is a mathematics professor at the exclusive century long lasting academy The Three Dragons situated on a recluse island at the Atlantic ocean, the three dragons symbolize the three rocks coming aout of the ocean near the shore. She is an orphan abandoned on the Dragon’s chapel stairs. She was raised by Joanne Dorsey, the art professor and Orla Fenway, the headmistress and they are the closest she knows of a mother. Dragons is her home, the place she has grown into and where she teaches now and loves it. Yet, one day, on her favorite dragon rock, near wild jasmine flowers, she makes a wish of change.

What she doesn’t know is that the Dragons is close to bankruptcy and the trustees (the sponsors of the academy) need to make a drastic change to salvage the school she loves so much.

The new change is actually a person, a new headmistress, Magdalene Nox, known for the infamous Nox method to tear boarding schools apart, all across the country, according to the teachers at Dragons.

And, Magdalene fucking Nox is none else, but the beautiful enigmatic redhead Sam had an affair with in New York, months ago, but now she is not hot, sexy and unforgetable, but ice cold and unforgivable with her very first words :

„My name is Magdalene Nox. I am the new Headmistress of Three Dragons. And you are all fired.”

Sam is in shock and angry and hot all over again seeing Magdalene like this. She wants to ruin Dragons at the orders of the trustees, one of them being Magdalene’s ex-husband. Sam will fight every of Magdalene’s decisions and in every situation, she will argue for the older teachers and for the scholarship students like her favorite ones, Lily and Amanda.

Now, Magdalene Nox is and will stay an enigma for some time, yet layer by layer she exposes herself and her reasons of being the new headmistress at Dragons. She is ice cold, imposing, ironic, sarcastic, yet ironclad in her decisions and each and every one of them seem to be right. She wants Sam to help her with the transition for the headmistress job and as Sam will get to know Magdalene better as a person, she will fall deeper in love with the stunning, haughty, distant and unatainable and yet, so beautiful woman. Even her eyes are special, due to her central iris heterochromia condition, at its most beautiful.

Magdalene will fight everyone to reform Dragons the way she wants to, the right way actually, and there are many opposants, even Sam she can’t trust because Sam should be loyal to the former headmistress, Orla and the rest of the teachers. Yet, Sam is infatuated with Magdalene and obiviously it is hard for her to separate the hot, sexy and steamy Magdalene from the ice cold, aloof, maddening and purposely obtuse, new headmistress who captivated her without reason.  

A little detail I love is Magdalene’s wild jasmine perfume, the same one from Sam’s rocks.

Sam is on Magdalene’s side and I loved how smooth the transition was, how Magdalene’s persona and acts manged to do that in a short period of time. She is perfect for the job, and even though Sam feels sorry for Orla, the former headmistress, she sees the positive changes Magdalene does. The school is important, Sam understands that and solemnly promises Magdalene she will wait for her to finish the job and then they can be together.

I loved the moments they forget this promise.

The storyline is utterly captivating, Magdalene is a puzzle and small pieces of her come in place from time to time.

The writing style is beautiful and there are many witty ideas spread among some memorable paragraphs that the reader cannot forget (the blueberry one).

There are more than one surprizes along the plot and they were disclosed at the right moments.

Who is Magdalene?

Why does Magdalene want to save Dragons so much?

What connects Sam and Magdalene more than their attraction for each other?

Who will Magdalene choose : Sam or Dragons?

Will ever Sam find her father ?

And so many more.

I adore this book and I am absolutely smitten with Magdalene. It is my favorite lesfic book ever. I couldn’t recommend it more. I just hope Milena Mckay will write more books like this one.

I like Milena Mckay’s interview where she discloses who her inspiration for the book was (she also has witty instagram posts for this).

https://sapphicbookreview.com/interview-with-milena-mckay/

Excerpt from the book:

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