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An Observer Best Debut of the Year

A Granta Best Young British Novelist

‘I loved this book’ JULIA ARMFIELD

‘Exhilarating’ MONICA HEISEY

‘Astonishing’ ANDREA LAWLOR

‘Should be on everyone’s summer reading list’
iNEWS

‘Scorching … One of our favourite reads’
TIME OUT

A Guardian Essential Summer Read

A sensual debut novel of the forbidden love between a young woman and a headmaster’s 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 ‘matron’. There she meets Mrs S, the headmaster’s 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 woman’s 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.

‘Desire crackles through these pages like fire’
TELEGRAPH

‘Wildly sexy … I kept forgetting to exhale’ CHARLOTTE MENDELSON

‘There’s nothing else like it out there’
THE TIMES

‘Compulsively readable … beautiful, brilliant’
OBSERVER

‘Moody, generous and brilliant’ JESSIE BURTON

‘Rare and thrilling’ SARAH WINMAN

Publisher Review

'The intense physicality of the novel's emotions and its stylish, stripped-back prose make for an arresting pairing' Hephzibah Anderson, Observer 'A story so seductively and intelligently observed that its pulse continues long after the final page. To dismantle a certain queer narrative into something else is rare and thrilling. I haven't read anything quite like it. Yes. I loved it' Sarah Winman, author of Still Life 'Mrs S is sublime - at once a languorous slow-burn and a moving reflection on queerness and what it is to be and be seen. I loved this book' Julia Armfield, author of Our Wives Under the Sea 'Tense and taut and exhilarating. A smart and sexy novel about looking and being looked at, about feeling and knowing, about the people we want and the people we want to be. I loved it' Monica Heisey, author of Really Good, Actually 'Hot!' Joanna Walsh, author of Vertigo 'I've completely fallen for the astonishing Mrs. S ... K Patrick's watchful measured prose simmers, edging the reader along, asking Will I get what I want? and What then?' Andrea Lawlor, author of Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl 'K Patrick's breathless, splintered prose vividly communicates their subject, which is erotic longing and a desire that must remain clandestine. What a beautifully crafted and uncannily accomplished debut. What an irresistible new voice' Rupert Thomson, author of Never Anyone but You 'A voluptuous performance in the art of withholding, taut with anticipation through the final line' Lillian Fishman, author of Acts of Service 'An extraordinary novel: poignant and tough, tender and unsentimental' Marina Kemp, author of Nightingale 'A delicately detailed fresco of longing ... I love this book' Zain Khalid, author of Brother Alive