Our unnamed narrator, referred to only as Miss by The Girls, has taken a Matron position at an elite boarding school in the British countryside. Miss is immediately infatuated with the Headmaster’s wife, and through fragmented sentences and hushed, staccato prose, they inch closer to one another in the desperation of unspoken, uncertain desire. The urgency of their illicit yearning is heightened by the sticky heat of summer pressing in, by the sense of endings looming from the beginning.

'I want her to be moved. The most painful desire of all, surely, to want somebody to be moved, to want to be so significant.'

Admittedly, it took me a while to adjust to the narrative style but once I did, I was completely captivated. I was trying to put my finger on the feeling it was evoking for basically the entire book. In finishing, I realised it was the feeling of remembering. The narrative is present tense, but the fractured moments, fleeting images and cherished details, makes it feel like an immersion into memories that have been recalled and returned to often.

‘When she is not around, I invent her. When she is around, I invent her.’

At first glance, this is a beautifully sapphic novel. Images of girlhood and femininity are held gently in palms, and quietly placed aside. As we spend more time with Miss, these images grow heavy with complexity, and musings on gender identity and selfhood shift into focus.

‘I look back at the man who has already forgotten me, now pushing a friend with a similarly beautiful chest. His arms around his middle, then his ribs. Soft punches thrown into each shoulder. I feel the itch of skin beneath my binder. Inevitable. I notice things l want to steal.’

‘if I could choose a different body, I would choose this water.’

This is what it sounds like when poets write debut novels. A shimmering haze of a novel, perfect for summer, perfect for Pride.