K Patrick

'A story so seductively and intelligently observed that its pulse continues long after the final page.' Sarah Winman, author of Still Life

Join us in the bookshop to celebrate the sensual and sublimely stylish Mrs S: a tale of queer love that smoulders with the heat of summer.

K Patrick is a Glasgow-based writer who has been recognised by both The Observer and Granta as one of the best young novelists writing today.

Set in an elite English boarding school, Patrick's taut and arresting debut novel follows a young Australian woman taking 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 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 explores the contested terrain of our bodies, our desires and the constraints society places around both.

'What a beautifully crafted and uncannily accomplished debut. An irresistible new voice’ Rupert Thomson, author of Never Anyone but You