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.īut Rebecca is here to make her mark. 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. Now I'm in charge, the gates are my gates. The more that is revealed, the more complicated it all becomes.This edition published by Orion Books 2021 Forced to confront this trauma by the school boys' discovery, Rebecca starts to piece together what actually happened to her brother and how she has been haunted by the mysterious and unnerving Mr Smallface, a presence that now appears to be in contact with her daughter, Emily.

Her parents never recovered and became easy targets to anyone who cruelly offered even a sliver of hope.

She had been a happy child until the disappearance of her brother Conrad when she was five years old, which naturally had a devastating effect on her family. Chapters are told from the point of view of the 'white queen' or the 'black king', which should indicate how Rebecca manipulates the old don. Prompted by this turn of events, Buckfast recounts her past to Straitley in a series of conversations. He brings this news of another scandal - he's already haunted by his fallen friend, Eric Scoones - to the new boss. Oswald's who can neither get his head round the term 'headmistress nor successfully negotiate the pronoun minefield around a trans pupil. Straitley, who despite himself seems a decent enough sort of chap, is a remanent of the old St. Oswald's - and it's not the first time Buckfast has appeared either - following on from Gentlemen & Players (2005) and Different Class (2016) but I've yet to read either of them and so can assure you that A Narrow Door works just fine as a stand-alone read. It should be noted here that is the third volume by Harris to feature Straitley and St. Students approach Classics Master Roy Straitley after discovering a body. Before any of this becomes apparent, this reader sat up straight when she laid out her stall by admitting to two murders as early as the preface. Oswald’s, a posh old boys school, where her rise as the first female to occupy the top position and the addition of female students - and the attendant name change from 'School For Boys' to 'Academy' - is ruffling a few feathers. Rebecca Buckfast has recently been made headmistress of St. Best-selling author Harris has admirably gone all over the map in her career, from magical realism to historical fiction, but how would one describe A Narrow Door? On the one hand, it’s a psychological thriller.

A narrow door a novel joanne harris