Mrs S Av K Patrick

An Observer Best Debut of the Year 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 headmaster's 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 S's 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 Patrick's 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. 'Oozes with erotic tension from the start.It is a story so seductively and intelligently observed that its pulse continues long after the final page ... rare and thrilling' Sarah Winman, author of Still Life 'Sublime - at once a languorous slow-burn and a moving reflection on queerness and what it is to be and be seen. I loved this book' Julia Armfield, author of Our Wives Under the Sea