Synopsis
‘Brilliant . . . A deeply unsettling, excellent read’ - Daisy Johnson, author of Everything Under
'A potent contemporary fable . . . riveting' - Guardian
‘Genuinely thrilling . . . one long beautiful scream’ - Evie Wyld
Lucy lives with her husband Jake and their two boys. Her life is devoted to her children, her days mapped out by their finely tuned routine.
Until a man calls one afternoon with a shattering message: his wife has been having an affair with Lucy’s husband. He thought she should know.
Lucy is distraught. She decides to stay with Jake, if only for the children’s sake, but in order to even the score, they agree that she will hurt him three times. Jake will not know when the hurt is coming, or what form it will take. And so begins a delicate game of crime and punishment, from which there is no return . . .
Told in dazzling, musical prose, The Harpy by Megan Hunter is a dark, staggering fairy tale, at once mythical and otherworldly and fiercely contemporary. It is a novel of love, marriage and its failures, of power and revenge, of metamorphosis and renewal.
‘Utterly compelling . . . precise and darkly truthful’ Esther Freud
Details
Reviews
“The Harpy is brilliant. Hunter imbues the everyday with apocalyptic unease. A deeply unsettling, excellent read.”Daisy Johnson, Booker shortlisted author of Everything Under
“In The Harpy, Hunter has articulated female rage in a way that lives on in your bones and in your gut. A genuinely thrilling read, one long beautiful scream.”Evie Wyld
“The Harpy is an almost perfect book. The premise is so simple, and the execution so flawless . . . I've talked about it more than anything else I've read so far this year: I love explaining the set-up to friends and watching their eyes widen. It's so dark and so much fun.”Kristen Roupenian, author of Cat Person
“Sentence after sentence made my skin bump. Not just with what the sentence said, but because the writing was so very, very good. It's a brilliant piece of work.”Cynan Jones, author of Cove
