Author: Rosanna Pike
Genre: Historical Fiction / Picaresque / Coming-of-Age / Social Commentary
Ideal For: Readers who adore fierce, oddball heroines; those who like their historical fiction rough around the edges, full of grit, humour and despair in equal measure; fans of found families, moral ambiguity, and voices that speak truth through dirt, blood—and occasional mischief.
Rosanna Pike’s A Little Trickerie is the kind of debut that feels like a public entanglement with someone half-angel, half-rascal, and entirely unforgettable. It transports us to early Tudor England, but not in the polished, courtly way of silk gowns and royal intrigue; instead, through the cracked hands of vagabonds, the ragged hope of the voiceless, and the sharp, pungent voice of Tibb Ingleby—a girl who has learned to survive by wits, outrages, and “trickeries.”
This is a book about what it means to have no roof, no safety, and yet still desire beauty, belonging, truth. It’s about belief and deceit (often the same thing), about church power and superstition, about what counts as morality when you have nothing to lose. And above all, it’s a vivid, messy, joyful story of resistance.
Orphan, Outcast, Trickster: Tibb’s World
Tibb Ingleby was born a vagabond. She has never had a fixed home; her mother taught her that the rules of “the Big Man”—God, Church, society—are best bent or sidestepped when they oppress you. But now Ma is dead in a trick gone wrong, and Tibb is orphaned, raw with grief, and alone with her newborn sister. The journey begins: across fields, towns, forests of what is called Tudor England, encountering cruelty, kindness, superstition, strangers who might be saviours or predators.
Tibb is fourteen, wild in survival, bold in imagination, foul-mouthed and tender; so unlike the sainted maiden characters of more conventional historical fiction. As she wanders, she starts to gather companions: Ivo, a wanderer with secrets; a troupe of travelling actors; Maria; others who have been cast out or wounded by the world. With them, she hatches her greatest trickerie yet—an audacious plan to use belief (the superstition people cling to) to escape the chains society has bound her in.
But trickery, once loosed, becomes unpredictable. Crowds gather. People believe. Enemies lurk. Tibb’s hoax takes on a life of its own, becoming something both dangerous and necessary.
Pike’s Pen: Voice, Tone, and Texture
What sets A Little Trickerie apart is its voice—Tibb’s voice—with all its swagger, its vulnerability, its blunt humour. She narrates with innocence and reckoning at once: illiterate, rough-spoken, yet profoundly reflective in her own way. Pike doesn’t try to “elevate” her by polishing her dialect into genteel speech; instead she lets us hear Tibb as she would hear herself—rough edges sharp, her observations surprising, her way of naming things inventive and tender even when her world is harsh.
There’s humour here—ribs and jabs and bawdy jokes—but also grief: for her mother, for loss, for what people like her endure. Pike balances those so well. The world is full of cruelty: from Church persecution to communal suspicion, from class contempt to violence, gender danger, homophobic threat. And yet Pike also sketches moments of beauty: the loyalty of outcasts, the kindness of strangers, the audacity of hope.
Her Tudor England isn’t a romantic backdrop; it’s an active force: laws that criminalize wandering, prejudice against difference, a Church powerful both for comfort and harm, superstition that can grant hope or damn the vulnerable. A Little Trickerie doesn’t shy away from the dirt under the nails, the hunger, the cold, the fear, but neither does it dwell there exclusively.
Weaving Trickery from Belief and Survival
One of the novel’s strongest threads is how belief and trickery intersect. People in Tibb’s world want to believe: in miracles, in angels, in piety, in salvation. Pike observes how this desire can both liberate and cage. Tibb’s hoax—her greatest trick—plays on that hunger. It asks: when belief is commodified, when fear and superstition are weaponised, what happens if you become what people want so badly to see?
This is not a story of clean morality. Tibb is not always heroic. Her trickery risks others; her loyalties stretch; her conscience sometimes wakes in the wrong moments. It’s messy, and that mess is honesty. Pike forces readers to confront uncomfortable truths: survival sometimes demands deceit; kindness can be brutish when conditions are harsh; the line between pretending and believing blurs until you’re not sure which side you’re on.
What Soars—and What Keeps One Slightly Pu’d
So much of A Little Trickerie soars. Tibb. Her found family. The lyrical, inventive language. The emotionally charged moments (when grief pierces, when betrayal stings, when hope combusts). Pike’s plotting has pace: there are small triumphs, near failures, twists of luck, betrayals, risks that feel real. The bigger the stakes, the more you care: will Tibb survive her longest trick? Will the people she gathers manage to be safe? Will she finally have something she can call home?
That said, the novel isn’t absolutely flawless. For some readers, the tonal shifts—between ribald humour and graphic suffering—can jar. Tibb’s voice, which works so well as fierce, sometimes naïve, sometimes angry, occasionally lapses into repetition: certain phrases or attitudes recur (perhaps intentionally, to evoke survival’s loops, or perhaps less intentionally, as a byproduct of maintaining voice). The stretch of the “final trickery” can feel longer than strictly necessary: the buildup is excellent, but the resolution rushes in places, leaving some threads less tightly woven than one might wish.
There are also moments where historical detail is less precise: some of the anachronistic language or modern sensibilities slip through. Some readers will find that off-putting; others, charming. It depends on how much historical “crust” you prefer in your fiction vs. how much you want the novel to feel immediate and relevant.
Themes That Echo Long After
Tibb’s story is about the need for a roof—a physical shelter, yes, but also belonging, shelter of identity, of acceptance. What makes someone “home”? Is it place, people, love—or the ability to trick even the rough world into acknowledging you? The idea of religion vs superstition, institutional cruelty, fear of difference, the hidden lives of LGBTQ+ people in a hostile climate—all of these ripple under the surface.
Also: trauma is not clean. Tibb carries her mother’s lessons, her deaths, her survival strategy; she carries guilt, shame, rage. Pike treats trauma with seriousness. It shapes but does not define Tibb, and Tibb’s growth is imperfect, organic.
Belonging: through found family, through love, through loyalty. Tibb wants to be seen, wants to be believed, but also to believe in something good. Her relationships with Ivo, Maria, others show trust is fragile, but possible.
Why A Little Trickerie Matters
It’s rare to read a historical novel that is simultaneously ambitious, daring, funny, sad, hopeful. Pike doesn’t do the “Tudor glitz” of many period novels; she pulls you into the ragged borderlands, the edges of society. She gives voice to the voiceless. She holds up a mirror: how much of what we believe is imposed; how much of what we pretend may yet become true.
In a moment when historical fiction often swings between sanitized pasts and blockbusters, A Little Trickerie stands out: its moral complexity, its energy, its fresh approach to voice. It gives us a protagonist not as someone to look up to, but someone to root for—even when she errs. And in that rooting there’s a recognition of how many Tibb-like people have been written out of history.
Final Thoughts
A Little Trickerie is a gift: rough, sharp, unflinching, full of heart. Tibb Ingleby is not a saintly heroine; she is muddied, wounded, witty, resilient, and through her voice we can see a Tudor England that is impossible, cruel, miraculous. Rosanna Pike has given us a debut that refuses to let us turn away from injustice, yet insists there is room for laughter, for mischief, for hope.
If there is any quibble, it would be that certain stretches—especially the final plot turns—could be more tightly resolved, and that the voice, intense and singular though it is, occasionally leans on repetition for texture that may feel over-worked for some. But these are small debts compared to the wealth of what the novel gives.
A Little Trickerie earns its five stars by being raw where many historical novels gloss, by being hopeful without flinching from despair, and by giving us a heroine who is unforgettable. If you want a story that will scorch its way into your imagination with its voice, its defiance, its longing—for shelter, for love, for belief—this is the one. Read this book. Let Tibb Ingleby tricker you into feeling more alive than you knew you could.
