Mrs S

Author: Patrick, K

Of specific Gay interest

Published on 8 June 2023 by HarperCollins Publishers (Fourth Estate Ltd) in the United Kingdom.

Hardback | 304 pages
143 x 224 x 31 | 420g

An Observer Best Debut of the Year

A Granta Best of Young British Novelists

Oozes with erotic tension from the start Sarah Winman, author of Still Life

Sublime I loved this book Julia Armfield, author of Our Wives Under the Sea

Moody, generous and brilliant Jessie Burton, author of The House of Fortune

Tense, taut and exhilarating Monica Heisey, author of Really Good, Actually

Ive completely fallen for the astonishing Mrs S Andrea Lawlor, author of Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl

Powerfully sensual and sublimely stylish, Mrs S is a tale of queer love that smoulders with the heat of 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. Within this landscape of immense privilege, in which the girls can sense the slightest weakness in those around them, she finds herself unsure of her role, her accent and her body.

That is until she meets Mrs S, the headmasters 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 Mrs Ss world and their unspoken desire blooms into an illicit affair of electric intensity. But, as the summer begins to fade, both women know that a choice must be made.

K Patricks portrait of the butch experience is revelatory; exploring the contested terrain of our bodies, our desires and the constraints society places around both. Mrs S marks the arrival of a major new literary talent, unlike any other.

The intense physicality of the novels emotions and its stylish, stripped-back prose make for an arresting pairing Observer

Atmospheric and daring Guardian

Theres nothing else like it out there The Times

Bold and beautiful Desire crackles through these pages like fire Telegraph

Entirely captivating New York Times

Reading Mrs S is a delicious experience Rupert Thomson, author of Never Anyone But You