The St. Ambrose School for Girls
A darkly gripping coming-of-age story, filled with secrets and twisted friendships
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- £2.99
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- £2.99
Publisher Description
'Completely original, quietly chilling. Mean Girls meets We Were Liars in this compelling, cat-and-mouse thriller featuring enemies made, secrets kept, and tables turned' LISA GARDNER
If Heathers met The Secret History . . . a darkly gripping coming-of-age story in which friendships can turn deadly in a school which hides devastating secrets. Perfect for fans of My Dark Vanessa.
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It's 1991, and at the St. Ambrose School for Girls, the exquisite Greta Stanhope reigns supreme. She's rich, beautiful - and malicious.
Sarah Taylor is the new girl at St. Ambrose. Exiled to the elite New England boarding school, Sarah finds the girls here are glossy and sharp-tongued. Withdrawn, prickly and fragile, she doesn't fit in.
Greta won't let Sarah forget that she'll never be one of them. But Sarah is determined not to give Greta the satisfaction of breaking her.
Yet the line between teenage rivalry and something much darker is thin. When someone ends up dead, Sarah finds herself unravelling.
Just how far will she go to protect her own secrets? And is she prepared for what the other girls will do to do the same?
Deliciously dark and razor-sharp, The St. Ambrose School for Girls is a compulsive novel that will stay with you long after you turn the last page.
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Praise for The St. Ambrose School for Girls:
'An intricate, unflinching portrait of growing up, fitting in, and speaking out. The St. Ambrose School for Girls is both a taut thriller and a study on the intensity of teenage relationships and coming-of-age emotions. With its vivid campus setting, twisty mystery, and cast of complicated female characters, this story will burrow into readers' heads and stay there' LAURIE ELIZABETH FLYNN, author of The Girls Are All So Nice Here
'Mental health, friendship, loyalty, jealousy, corruption, and love all have a place in this highly recommended novel that takes readers on a roller-coaster of events and emotions that the characters experience' Library Journal (starred review)
'Ward tells the story of a vulnerable teen struggling to fit in at a tony boarding school with deep compassion and a lyrical ferocity. A riveting, twisty read' FIONA DAVIS, New York Times bestselling author of The Magnolia Palace
'A twisty, claustrophobic thriller . . . that readers who like a deep POV will enjoy' Booklist
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Ward (the Black Dagger Brotherhood series) delivers a diffuse slice of dark academia set in the rarefied halls of the titular school. The year is 1991, and 15-year-old narrator Sarah Taylor has been admitted to the prestigious Greensboro, Mass., institution on scholarship. On the first day of school, Sarah, in her black clothes and steel-toed boots, feels out of place among the other girls, "who look like they've stepped out of the rainbow page of a United Colors of Benetton ad." Her foreboding is justified: she's soon being bullied by a clique of mean girls captained by the slim, blonde Greta Stanhope. What's more, Sarah has recently been diagnosed as bipolar and is on daily doses of lithium to keep her tethered to reality; as a result, there's a smudgy line between real events and those she imagines. When someone turns up dead, that blurriness becomes a major problem for Sarah and everyone around her. The novel begins well, with strong characters and effectively blunt prose, but Ward takes so long to get to the meat of the action that it begins to feel indulgent. Before they reach the solid conclusion, many readers will have drifted away.
