Save Us by Mona Kasten
Save Us is the third book and the final installment in Mona Kasten’s Maxton Hall series, which gained popularity in the U.S. after an explosive first season on Prime Video. Season One closely followed book one, Save Me, and with season two releasing later this month, we’ll all find out together if the streaming series stays the course.
The books were originally published in German, but we book lovers have lucked out with the recent English translations by Rachel Ward.
A Quick Trip Down Maxton Memory Lane
Now is the time to grab books one and two and scroll away if you want to avoid spoilers, because this is a true series with cliffhangers and all.
Let’s recap, shall we? The Maxton Hall series is based around the on-again off off-again romance between Ruby Bell and James Beaufort. These two went from strangers to enemies after Ruby caught James’ sister, Lydia, in a compromising position with her history teacher, Graham. Yes, Lydia had been having a secret affair with Graham — but little does he know that Lydia is pregnant. Oh, the drama!
How did Ruby and James end up enemies, you ask? Well, James assumed he could buy Ruby’s silence to protect his sister, but Ruby cannot be bought, no matter how badly she could use the money as a scholarship student at the prestigious prep school. James even went as far as to take photos of Ruby speaking with Graham at a party, which looked far less innocent than it really was, tucking the blackmail away for a rainy day.
As it turns out, Ruby had no interest in the drama — endearing her to James. After a lot of yearning, they fell in love against all odds. She even became Lydia’s closest confidant throughout the pregnancy.
Cliffhangers, Consequences, and a Wider Lens on Maxton Hall
Everything was smooth sailing until the end of book two, Save You, where we left off on a cliffhanger after the pictures James snapped had been delivered to the school’s headmaster, leaving Ruby expelled and Graham fired. The moment James admits to Ruby that he took the photos comes crashing down in a devastating blow.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned while reading this series, it’s never to get too comfortable when our main characters are happy.
Now that we’re caught up to book three, let’s get into what makes this book unique. In the prior books, the focus was mainly on Ruby’s and James’ point of view, but Save Us lets us see behind the curtain of the people closest to them: Lydia, Graham, Allistair, Ember and Wren.
Lydia and Graham have been forced apart by the dean of Maxton Hall and Lydia’s father, who will stop at nothing to keep his daughter from embarrassing the family name by dating a lowly teacher. Save Us continues an uphill battle they’ve been fighting since Ruby caught them together in the first book.
Allistair has been one of James’s closest friends since childhood, and spent much of book two reeling James back from the brink of self-destruction. I loved getting to know Allistair more on a personal level in book three as he delved deeper into his sexuality and deep love for one of their other friends.
A Tender Spark Born from the Unlikeliest Pair
Among the additional storylines, the one that intrigued me most was between Ember and Wren. These two seemed doomed from their first meeting in a prior book, but their connection is undeniable.
He’s the bad boy who’s lost his fortune, and she’s the plus-size clothing blogger whose surety in herself is to be admired. Her lifelong circumstances have never changed from what some might call humble, so who better to emotionally support Wren as he learns to live in his new reality.
I thought their relationship was charming in its innocence, but dramatic in its circumstances, as Ember is Ruby’s younger sister, and Wren forced himself on Ruby after plying her with alcohol years prior, soon after she transferred to Maxton Hall.
Wren’s character arc was almost as impressive as James’s in his growth and maturity. I rooted so hard for Ember and Wren to fall in love.
From Page to Screen: A Finale Worthy of Adaptation Hype”
Switching around kept everything fresh and made the book fly by. While the first two books were mostly focused on Ruby and James, the final installment gave us insight into the friend group and their conflicts while tying it all together. I found myself nearly crying over characters that I barely noticed in the prior books.
I’m so ready to watch the last two books be brought to life on the screen. In the era of film and TV adaptations, this is one of my most anticipated, and that’s saying a lot since it’s not even filmed in a language I speak.
If the content is so intriguing that you don’t notice the dubbed audio, you know it’s good — and in this case, it’s all because of the writing in these books.
About Mona Kasten:
Mona Kasten is an international bestselling author and literary phenomenon. She was born in Hamburg in 1992 and studied library and information management before devoting herself entirely to writing. After the success of her first novel, Begin Again, she quickly established herself as a star in German publishing and around the world, and her Maxton Hall series solidified that. She has sold over 3 million copies in her country of Germany alone, and translation rights to her series have been sold in over twenty countries.
