The Small Hours

Harriet Mansfield, brave, wry and handsome, is determined to triumph no matter what. With a decade of therapy under her belt and a new large inheritance, it seems there is nothing she cannot achieve.

So she decides to open the school of her dreams. To her precious little girls, rich in everything but care, she vows to provide the happiest childhoods in the world. For everyone knows that early years passed in delightful ways can set you up for life.

But can this ambitious new departure spill some retrospective sweetness onto Harriet's own harsh beginnings, or better still cancel them out altogether? Will the family she's estranged from ever grant her the recognition she craves?

Written with deep psychological insight and coal-black humour THE SMALL HOURS is a stunning meditation on love, self-love and forgiveness, and their shadowy opposites.

“The Small Hours is an absolute gem of a novel: exquisite, diamond-bright and lacerating to the hardest of hearts”

The Small Hours excites with refined delights . . . Boyt's economical prose remains elegantly polished, her descriptions of the subtleties of psychotherapy spine-tingling . . . A meaty yet accessible novel possessing great psychological rigour - Sunday Times - Lucy Beresford

Boyt is a compassionate chronicler of the human heart . . . The point of this novel is not whether your dreams succeed or fail, but whether you're still willing to risk having dreams at all. In Harriet Mansfield, Boyt has drawn a character whose moral and emotional courage is both convincing and heartbreaking - Financial Times - Rebecca Abrams

The Small Hours is an absolute gem of a novel: exquisite, diamond-bright and lacerating to the hardest of hearts - Literary Review - Amanda Craig

Susie Boyt is the author of four acclaimed novels and a memoir, MY JUDY GARLAND LIFE, which was serialised on Radio 4 and will be staged at the Nottingham Playhouse in spring 2013. Since 2002 she has written a weekly column about art and life for the Financial Times. She lives in London with her family.

'From Charlotte Bronte's Lucy Snowe through Muriel Spark's Jean Brodie to Roald Dahl's Miss Honey, schoolmistresses have been among the best-loved characters in fiction.In Susie Boyt's Harriet Mansfield there is a new name to add to that list...a brilliant portrait.' Daily Mail 'Boyt is a compassionate chronicler of the human heart . . .. In Harriet Mansfield, she has drawn a character whose moral and emotional courage is both convincing and heartbreaking' Financial Times 'Boyt has a gift for creating loveable protagonists...Harriet is magnificent.' Independent. 'An exquisitely written tale of a damaged woman attempting to mend her past with a grand gesture.' Pyschologies 'An absolute gem of a novel: exquisite, diamond-bright and lacerating to the hardest of hearts.' Literary Review 'Wonderfully unexpected...brilliantly done' BBC Radio 4 Saturday Review

Harriet Mansfield, brave, wry and handsome, is determined to triumph no matter what. With a decade of therapy under her belt and a new large inheritance, it seems there is nothing she cannot achieve.So she decides to open the school of her dreams. To her precious little girls, rich in everything but care, she vows to provide the happiest childhoods in the world. For everyone knows that early years passed in delightful ways can set you up for life.But can this ambitious new departure spill some retrospective sweetness onto Harriet's own harsh beginnings, or better still cancel them out altogether? Will the family she's estranged from ever grant her the recognition she craves?Written with deep psychological insight and coal-black humour THE SMALL HOURS is a stunning meditation on love, self-love and forgiveness, and their shadowy opposites.

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