The Ophelia Girls: The Most Immersive, Intoxicating Read of the Year

· Pan Macmillan
Ebook
336
Pages
Eligible
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About this ebook

Set between two fateful summers, Jane Healey's The Ophelia Girls is a heady exploration of illicit desire, infatuation and the perils and power of being a young woman.

'An immersive, intoxicating summer read with the long-lasting feel of a classic' - Molly Aitken, author of The Island Child


Summer, 1973. Teenage Ruth and her four friends spend the scorching summer days in the river, recreating tableaus of the drowning Ophelia and other tragic heroines. But as autumn draws nearer, real tragedy has found them.

Summer, 1997. Ruth returns to her childhood home with her husband and three children, including her eldest daughter seventeen-year-old Maeve. However when Stuart, an old family friend comes to stay, the uneasy relationship between mother and daughter is pushed to its limit. For Stuart's arrival is a reminder of a death in Ruth's past, while Maeve is feeling more alive than ever . . .

As the heat of the summer burns, how long can the family go before long-held secrets threaten to burst their banks and drown them all?

'A vivid, sensuous novel . . . I can't recommend it enough' - Anna Bailey, bestselling author of Tall Bones

About the author

Jane Healey studied English Literature at Warwick University. She was short-listed for the 2013 Bristol Short Story Prize, the 2014 Costa Short Story Award, the 2016 Commonwealth Short Story Prize and the 2017 Penguin Random House WriteNow mentoring programme. The Ophelia Girls is her second novel. Her first, The Animals at Lockwood Manor, won the HWA Debut Crown Award. She lives in Edinburgh.

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