Published By: Riverrun
Pages: 400
Released On: 03/07/2025
Fleeing Scotland in the wake of family disgrace, 16-year-old Ida Campbell secures a scholarship at a failing girls’ boarding school on a remote part of the south English coast. Despite the eccentricities of her new Headmistress, who warns her of the dangers of the Cold War and the ever-present threat of the bomb, St Anne’s seems like a refuge to Ida. But all this is about to change. For a start, her new room-mate is the infamous Louise Adler, potential arsonist and hardened outcast.
Meanwhile, the geography teacher Eleanor Alston, in her late thirties, a disastrous love affair in her wake, faces the new term with weary resignation. But the fragile ecosystem of the school is disrupted by the arrival of a new teacher, Matthew Langfield. Eleanor has an uneasy feeling he is not who he says he is.
And things only get worse when a mysterious sickness starts to spread throughout the school, causing strange limb jerks and seizures among the pupils. What is happening to the girls of St Anne’s? Could there be a poisoner among them? Is Ida’s scholarship really an escape, or is it instead a new nightmare?
*****
Thanks to NetGalley and Riverrun for the advanced copy of this title in return for an honest review.
I can’t explain how much I love Rebecca’s books – Our Fathers was a particular favourite, and I was thrilled to get a copy of her new one. But sadly it didn’t live up to my expectations.
This felt like it was lacking Rebecca’s voice. Don’t get me wrong, I did enjoy it and I will continue to love her books but this felt more…I don’t know how to explain it. Her other books, I have loved them and they felt very unique, very much in her style, a bit left-field. This one felt more mainstream I suppose, more classic, and whilst I haven’t got a problem with that, I did find myself missing that spark that she normally has.
Whilst there can be deviations, generally speaking, you can tell a book is by a certain author because they have a certain style that they carry through with them, even if they change genres. But if I didn’t now this was one of Rebecca’s, I don’t think I’d have guessed it because it felt completely different.
What Rebecca does do really well is depict dysfunctional but very real families and characters.
I didn’t think this was up to the standard of her previous books. It felt a bit flat. Her others are so full of feeling, but this one, for me anyway, seemed to stay on the surface instead of delving deep.
I wasn’t really sure what it was meant to be. A family depiction? Toxic friendship? Dark academia? A psychological thriller? A mystery?
I can’t say I didn’t enjoy it, because I did, I think. I finished it in a day, it was easy to read, smooth to read. Interesting premise and well created characters. But it lacked anything that I relate to Rebecca Wait as a writer. And for that I was quite disappointed. Her others book…I still think about them long after reading them, but I think this one will be quite easy to forget about.
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DON’T READ ANY MORE IF YOU DON’T WANT TO FIND OUT WHAT HAPPENS TO THE GIRLS AND THEIR SICKNESS
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What I did like though was the inclusion of conversion disorder (not known as Functional Neurological Disorder) and non-epileptic seizures, which is a diagnosis I have and it’s something I struggle from hugely, but it was a real delight (in a weird morbid way) to see it depicted in a book.
Books By Your Bedside 