For any young-adult readers who’ve had their fill of trilogies set in the dystopian future, the historical novels of Sally Nicholls will be a breath of fresh air. In the past 10 years, she has galloped us through the centuries: All Fall Down (2012) was set in a remote Yorkshire village during the Black Death, then came Things a Bright Girl Can Do (2017), a coming-of-age story about teenage suffragettes that scooped up the Waterstone’s Children’s Book Prize and two Carnegie nominations. Can she pull it off again?

This time, Nicholls transports us back to 1896, where we join Tirzah, Sophia and Polly, best friends who have recently left boarding school and are embarking on very different paths.…