An Observer Best Debut of the Year
A Granta Best Young British Novelist
A JULY 2023 INDIE NEXT PICK
A sublime and sensual debut novel exploring the nature of queer love and attraction, the transformative power of desire, and the dissonance between self and place, by White Review Fiction Prize shortlisted writer K Patrick
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 butch antipodean outsider arrives to take up the antiquated role of “matron.” Within this landscape of immense privilege, where difference is met with hostility, the matron 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—an assured, authoritative paragon of femininity. Over the course of a long, restless summer, their unspoken yearning blooms into an illicit affair of electric intensity. But, as the summer fades, a choice must be made.
Seductive, stylish, and disarmingly wry, K Patrick’s bold and revelatory debut smolders with the heat of summer as it explores the queer experience and the force of forbidden love.
"Patrick's staccato sentences add a layer of choppy, additional drama to the text...powerful and confident...I could wax on about the sensuality of Patrick's narrative."--Kristen Arnett, The New York Times Book Review
"A sly rewriting of Charlotte Brontë's boarding-school romances."--Merve Emre, The New Yorker
"Some of the best writing about infatuation and obsession I've come across...Mrs. S asks readers to consider the ways we inhabit bodies, how we inhabit our bodies. We are given the opportunity to inspect sexuality and sensuality, love and longing, and what happens in the heat drenched days of summer."--Kateri Kramer, The Rumpus
"The novel is erotically charged and textured. It produces a vocabulary for homosexual desire, making visible the nature of power that comes into play with gender."--Deccan Herald
"A striking queer romance in which lust yields subtle revelations about sexual power and selfhood...it marks the author out as a distinctive new talent."--Hephzibah Anderson, The Observer
★ "Patrick's deft manipulation of narrative time and use of interior monologue to describe the tensions among thought, intention, and action recall the work of Virginia Woolf... The drama of the forbidden affair keeps the reader voraciously turning the pages, but on a deeper level, the novel also offers an incisive and nuanced reflection on self-evolution as the narrator navigates the complexities of gender identity, social power, and the dynamic tension between private and public selves. An erotic yet high-minded literary achievement."--Kirkus Reviews (Starred Review)
"An atmospheric slow burn of a novel...a story of utmost yearning in the sense of queer desire, the attempt to understand one's self, and a simple longing to be understood...filled with poetry and melancholy around every corner and a hypnotic voice that conveys the intensity of youth and infatuation exquisitely."--Electric Literature, A Best Book of 2023
"Revelatory... Patrick makes palpable the compromises required by secret love, and though the romance is aching and well crafted, what emerges above all is a fascinating character portrait, that of a woman obscure to the world but radiant inside."--Publishers Weekly
"I was hypnotized by this ecstatic, erotic debut, written, it seems, in such a way as to remove everything possible (exposition, backstory, mundane descriptions, dialogue tags) to get closer to an experience of pure want... It is the first contemporary novel I have read in recent memory that I feel tempted to compare to Virginia Woolf, if only for the elasticity of time and the primacy of internal churn to create drama and dissonance. (But there's rather more sex.)"--Emily Temple, LitHub, The 28 Novels You Need to Read This Summer
"A taut, spunky, and fiercely original exploration of queer sexual and personal discovery."--Charley Burlock, Oprah Daily, A Best Book of 2023
"A story of power, bravery and ultimate choices, Mrs. S is a must-read."--Zoya Raza-Sheikh, Gay Times, The 10 Best LGBTQ+ Books of 2023
"A sexy, thrilling page-turner that is the perfect accompaniment to a day spent in the sun and the sand."--Meghana Kandlur, Electric Literature
"Patrick's poetic, at times elliptical prose style is perfect for building erotic tension."--Shayne Terry, Chicago Review of Books
"A thrillingly evocative debut from a superb young writer...5/5 stars."--Lucy Scholes, Telegraph UK
"[Mrs. S] will make you long for a passionate affair and a summer heatwave in equal measure."--Nathalie Kernot, British GQ
"The novel's strength lies in the ratcheting up of longing, culminating in passionate sex as the heatwave summer continues... Atmospheric and daring...beautifully written."--Joanna Briscoe, The Guardian
"K Patrick's first novel embraces and then toys with our expectations of the lesbian romance...[the] novel is attentive to gesture...filled with close descriptions of movement."--Josie Mitchell, London Review of Books
"There's nothing else like it out there...it remains exciting to hear such an individual new voice exploring power and desire, giving us an artful insight in other lives and reminding us that all things move toward their end."--John Self, The Times (UK)
"It is difficult for any book to be both deeply erotic and painfully honest without coming off as performatively cliched, unbearably romanticized, or both. Patrick dodges these obstacles with seeming ease, delivering a first novel that glistens with sweat and smells of hungover roses. Mrs. S has all the sex appeal of a freshly manicured nail and all the anxiety of watching it turn a screw."--Linda Stack-Nelson, Rain Taxi Review of Books
"A fever dream of intimacy and a hazy nightmare of yearning. I gave it five stars on Goodreads without a second thought."--Ava Burzycki, The Michigan Daily
"Subtle, scintillating...the intimacy and suppleness of Patrick's writing mark it out from the stripped-clean default of much contemporary fiction. Mrs. S glints with persuasive phrases."--James Cahill, Times Literary Supplement
"Mrs. S ticks all the boxes of what makes a novel great, and K. Patrick has a very distinct writing style that is crisp and powerful. After all, for someone like K. Patrick who knows how to use the power of language to convey emotions, there is no need to waste words."--United by Pop
"A melancholic yet seductive character study following a young, unnamed Australian woman at an English boarding school...With no mentions of modern technology, the setting takes on a liminal feeling, adding to the feeling of displacement that the protagonist experiences... A powerful and introspective novel that fans of queer literary fiction will savor."--Jennifer Renken, Library Journal
"Impressively sultry."--Financial Times
"Mrs. S is a novel in which a different kind of love--self-acceptance--conquers all."--Foreword Reviews
"Gorgeous...Mrs. S consists of mostly short, clipped sentences that still allow for the sumptuousness of a clandestine affair to sneak in, building in suspense of the will-they, won't-they variety."--Maris Kreizman, Vulture, "14 Books We Can't Wait to Read this Summer"
"K Patrick has said of Mrs S that 'I just had this impulse to write a horny lesbian novel'. They have absolutely succeeded at that aim - the granular, finely-worked detailing of longing, fantasising and consummation is wonderfully lascivious."--Leon Craig, The White Review
"If you prefer to delve into the dark and moody on an unbearably hot summer day, this is the perfect pick."--Asyia Iftikhar, PinkNews
"I just want to sit inside the sweaty sentences of the novel over and over."--Autostraddle
"A smoldering tale of obsession, queer desire and forbidden love."--NBC Out, "The Best LGBTQ Books of 2023"
"Such a delicately detailed fresco of longing that, upon finishing, I felt the incongruous sensation of watching a bird sleep. I can't explain why; I only know I love this book. K Patrick is a writer to whom I now can't help but return."--Zain Khalid, author of Brother Alive
"Mrs. S 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. To dismantle a certain queer narrative into something else is rare and thrilling. I haven't read anything quite like it. Yes. I loved it."--Sarah Winman, author of Still Life
"In July...I read Mrs. S by K Patrick...That was a great month of reading."--The Millions
"Our smorgasbord of superior reviews this week includes Kristen Arnett on K. Patrick's Mrs. S."--LitHub
"A sapphic period piece from K. Patrick." --The Austin Chronicle
"K. Patrick's mesmerizing debut, Mrs. S, is atmospheric and disorienting in the most effective way...Patrick will keep readers turning the pages to find out. This is a writer to watch."--Jennifer M. Brown, Shelf Awareness
"A voluptuous performance in the art of withholding, taut with anticipation through the final line."--Lillian Fishman, author of Acts of Service
"I loved this book in ways I no longer know how to express in a blurb...K Patrick's watchful measured prose simmers."--Andrea Lawlor, author of Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl
"Mrs. S is 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
"A beautifully crafted and uncannily accomplished debut."--Rupert Thomson, author of Barcelona Dreaming
"An extraordinary novel: poignant and tough, tender and unsentimental...Deeply warm and generous, optimistic in spite of its clear-eyed realism."--Marina Kemp, author of Nightingale
