An Best Debut of the YearObserver
A Best Young British NovelistGranta
âI loved this bookâJULIA ARMFIELD
âExhilaratingâMONICA HEISEY
'Astonishing'ANDREA LAWLOR
'Should be on everyone's summer reading list'iNEWS
A powerful, sensual novel of the forbidden love between a young woman and the headmasterâs wife, unfolding across a single a heatwave summer.
In an elite English boarding school where the girls kiss the marble statue of the famous dead author who used to walk the halls, a young Australian woman arrives to take up the antiquated role of âmatronâ. There she meets Mrs S, the headmasterâs wife, a woman who is her polar opposite: assured, sophisticated, a paragon of femininity.
Over the course of a long, restless heatwave, the matron finds herself irresistibly drawn ever closer into the older womanâs world with their unspoken desire blooming into an illicit affair of electric intensity. But, as the summer begins to fade, both know that a choice must finally be made.
âAtmospheric and daringâGUARDIAN
âThereâs nothing else like it out thereâTHE TIMES
âDesire crackles through these pages like fireâTELEGRAPH
âEntirely captivatingâNEW YORK TIMES
âMoody, generous and brilliantâJESSIE BURTON
'Rare and thrilling'SARAH WINMAN
âWildly sexy, brave, and so gripping I kept forgetting to exhaleâCHARLOTTE MENDELSON