‘Harriet Said is a highly plotted horror tale that turns the “Obstinate Questionings” of puberty into deadly weapons’ NEW YORK TIMES
‘An extremely original and disconcerting story’ DAILY TELEGRAPH
‘A sharp, chilling novel . . . The ending has real shock effect’ SUNDAY TIMES
A girl returns from boarding school to her sleepy Merseyside hometown and waits to be reunited with her childhood friend, Harriet, chief architect of all their past mischief. She roams listlessly along the shoreline and the woods still pitted with wartime trenches and encounters ‘the Tsar’ – almost old, unhappily married, both dangerously fascinating and repulsive.
Pretty, malevolent Harriet finally arrives – and over the course of the long holidays draws her friend into a scheme to beguile then humiliate the Tsar, with disastrous, shocking consequences.
A gripping portrayal of adolescent transgression, Beryl Bainbridge’s classic first novel remains as subversive today as when it was written.
‘An extremely original and disconcerting story’ DAILY TELEGRAPH
‘A sharp, chilling novel . . . The ending has real shock effect’ SUNDAY TIMES
A girl returns from boarding school to her sleepy Merseyside hometown and waits to be reunited with her childhood friend, Harriet, chief architect of all their past mischief. She roams listlessly along the shoreline and the woods still pitted with wartime trenches and encounters ‘the Tsar’ – almost old, unhappily married, both dangerously fascinating and repulsive.
Pretty, malevolent Harriet finally arrives – and over the course of the long holidays draws her friend into a scheme to beguile then humiliate the Tsar, with disastrous, shocking consequences.
A gripping portrayal of adolescent transgression, Beryl Bainbridge’s classic first novel remains as subversive today as when it was written.
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Reviews
An extremely original and disconcerting story
Chilling, exciting . . . remarkably convincing
A sharp, chilling novel . . . The ending has real shock effect
Compelling, horrifying, dramatic . . . [a] Molotov cocktail of teenage insecurity and dangerously partial understanding of maturity
A chilling novel of sheer horror
Compelling, horrifying, dramatic . . . [a] Molotov cocktail of teenage insecurity and dangerously partial understanding of maturity
An extremely original and disconcerting story
Harriet Said ... is a highly plotted horror tale that turns the "Obstinate Questionings" of puberty into deadly weapons
A sharp, chilling novel . . . The ending has real shock effect
An expertly conceived and consummated horror story . . . The author has made it seem as likely as it is unnatural and insidious
Strange and terrifying