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Your favourite authors have been gripped by this electric psychological thriller!

‘A dark world of emotional complexity and betrayal, where twist follows twist and nothing is what it seems’ ALEX MICHAELIDES
‘Exhilarating, addictive, fierce’ BRIDGET COLLINS
‘A psychological thriller you can’t put down and an antiheroine you won’t forget’ HARLAN COBEN
‘Dark, Gothic, and propulsively readable – past secrets and present discoveries entangle in an intricately crafted conclusion’ RUTH WARE
‘Engrossing, cunning, sharp, sinister . . . kept me enthralled till the final pages’ CHRIS WHITAKER
‘A clever chess game of repressed fears, power struggles, secrets and lies’ LUCY ATKINS
‘A complex, chilling mystery full of shifting truths and dark corners where the unburied past lies in wait’ TAMMY COHEN
‘A dark and richly enjoyable novel that already feels like a classic’ ELLY GRIFFITHS
‘Irresistibly readable, dark and brilliant with a masterful emotional punch’ CATRIONA WARD

* * * * *

Now I’m in charge, the gates are my gates. The rules are my rules.

It’s an incendiary moment for St Oswald’s school. For the first time in its history, a headmistress is in power, the gates opening to girls.

Rebecca Buckfast has spilled blood to reach this position. Barely forty, she is just starting to reap the harvest of her ambition. As the new regime takes on the old guard, the ground shifts. And with it, the remains of a body are discovered.

But Rebecca is here to make her mark. She’ll bury the past so deep it will evade even her own memory, just like she has done before. After all…

You can’t keep a good woman down.

* * * * *

Praise for Joanne Harris’s other books set in the St Oswald’s world – which all read as standalone thrillers:

‘A masterpiece of misdirection’ Val McDermid
‘Delivers an almighty twist . . . brilliantly atmospheric ‘ The Times
‘Crime novel or literary novel? Categories really don’t matter; readers will find themselves comprehensively gripped’ Independent
‘[A] gripping psychological thriller . . . Harris is one of our most accomplished novelists’ Daily Express
‘Marvellously mischievous’ Good Housekeeping
‘A classic whodunnit with the characters carefully crafted and the tension at a knife edge’ Sunday Express
‘[A] delicious black comedy’ Daily Mail

Publisher Review

Joanne Harris's assured hand leads you into a psychological maze, deeper and deeper into a dark world of emotional complexity and betrayal, where twist follows twist and nothing is what it seems. A masterful narrative voice, and a compulsive thriller from one of our greatest writers. I absolutely loved it * Alex Michaelides *