She is the first ever woman Head of what has previously been a boys-only school. Buckfast is a new broom, having assumed the Headship after a period of turbulence. The book is structured as a sort-of dialogue between the new Head of the school, Rebecca Buckfast, and old-school (in every sense of the world) Classics teacher, Roy Straitley. I hadn't read the previous books (shame on me) but A Narrow Door works very well as a standalone thriller, while hinting at the background that has already been established and bringing back familiar characters.

The first thing I should say about A Narrow Door is that it's the third part of a trilogy of psychological thrillers set in and around the same private grammar school, St Oswald's, and the town of Malbry.

'Becky was an only child, and yet she had a brother'. I'm grateful to the publisher for an advance e-copy of A Narrow Door via NetGalley to consider for review. brilliantly atmospheric ' The Times 'Crime novel or literary novel? Categories really don't matter readers will find themselves comprehensively gripped' Independent ' gripping psychological thriller. * * * * * Praise for Joanne Harris's other books set in the St Oswald's world - which all read as standalone thrillers: 'A masterpiece of misdirection' Val McDermid 'Delivers an almighty twist. She'll bury the past so deep it will evade even her own memory, just like she has done before. And with it, the remains of a body are discovered. As the new regime takes on the old guard, the ground shifts. Barely forty, she is just starting to reap the harvest of her ambition.

Rebecca Buckfast has spilled blood to reach this position. For the first time in its history, a headmistress is in power, the gates opening to girls. It's an incendiary moment for St Oswald's school. kept me enthralled till the final pages' CHRIS WHITAKER 'A clever chess game of repressed fears, power struggles, secrets and lies' LUCY ATKINS 'A complex, chilling mystery full of shifting truths and dark corners where the unburied past lies in wait' TAMMY COHEN 'A dark and richly enjoyable novel that already feels like a classic' ELLY GRIFFITHS 'Irresistibly readable, dark and brilliant with a masterful emotional punch' CATRIONA WARD * * * * * Now I'm in charge, the gates are my gates.

Your favourite authors have been gripped by this electric psychological thriller! 'A dark world of emotional complexity and betrayal, where twist follows twist and nothing is what it seems' ALEX MICHAELIDES 'Exhilarating, addictive, fierce' BRIDGET COLLINS 'A psychological thriller you can't put down and an antiheroine you won't forget' HARLAN COBEN 'Dark, Gothic, and propulsively readable - past secrets and present discoveries entangle in an intricately crafted conclusion' RUTH WARE 'Engrossing, cunning, sharp, sinister.

A narrow door a novel joanne harris