The Ruins: A Novel

by Phoebe Wynne

Overview

The most dazzling summer casts the darkest shadows in Phoebe Wynne's thrilling gothic novel, The Ruins.

Welcome to the Château des Sètes, a jewel of the Côte d’Azur, where long summer days bring ease, glamour, and decadence to the holidaymakers who can afford it.

Ruby Ashby adores her parents’ house in France, but this August, everything feels different. Unexpected guests have descended upon the château—friends of her parents, and their daughters—and they are keen to enjoy the hot, extravagant summer holiday to its fullest potential. But despite languid days spent poolside and long nights spent drinking, a simmering tension grows between the adults, and the sanctuary that Ruby once cherished soon starts to feel like a gilded cage.

Over two decades later, the Château des Sètes is for sale, its days of splendor and luxury long gone, leaving behind a terrible history and an ugly legacy. A young widow has returned to France, wanting to purchase the estate despite her memories of what transpired that fateful summer. But there is another person who is equally haunted by the château, and who also seeks to reclaim it. Who will set the house and its ghosts free—and who will become yet another of its victims?

With riveting psychological complexity, The Ruins captures the tangled legacy of abuse, the glittering allure of the Mediterranean, and the dark shadows that wait beneath the surface of both.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250800695
Publisher:	St. Martin's Publishing Group
Publication date:	07/04/2023
Pages:	336
Sales rank:	614,343
Product dimensions:	5.70(w) x 8.90(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

PHOEBE WYNNE is the author of Madam and The Ruins. She worked in education for nearly a decade and taught Classics in the UK and English Language and Literature in Paris. She is British and French, and currently splits her time between France and England.

Editorial Reviews

"Beautifully written and haunting." ––Cosmopolitan UK

"I was completely transported by The Ruins. Wynne has evocatively rendered a beautiful, doomed French chateau while creating immersive, almost dream-like atmospherics. I loved this novel."

—Sarah Pearse, New York Times bestselling author of The Sanatorium

"Tense and atmospheric, The Ruins investigates trauma and memory with a knowing, meticulous hand…This is a book that understands the inherent dangers of girlhood, and one that believes wholeheartedly in the innate resilience, bravery, and compassion of teenage girls themselves."

––Emily Layden, author of All Girls

"The French Riviera has never been more captivating or unsettling. A story rich with family tensions and a chateau that serves as a gilded cage, The Ruins is both beautifully written and haunting at its core…stunning."

––Shea Ernshaw, the New York Times bestselling author of A History of Wild Places

"Harrowing and compelling, this is a story burning with rage and the heat of the male gaze."

––Vikki Pattis, bestselling author of In the Dark

From the Publisher

05/23/2022

Against the backdrop of an aging French chateau, Wynne (Madam) offers the dark and befuddling tale of a group of English girls in the summer of 1985, one of whom revisits the scene 25 years later when the chateau is up for sale. Ruby Ashby, nearly 12, awaits another idyllic summer in her family’s vacation manse when three university friends of her father Toby arrive with their daughters, and things go awry. The girls are bombarded with lascivious remarks by the two men—one crosses a line by coercing Ruby to sit on his lap, another gropes her. Tension ratchets up when Toby’s former university love arrives with her provocative 17-year-old daughter, Ned, who has a penchant for Latin classics and likens the chateau’s male guests to different classical characters. Wynne packs the plot with jealousies, class rivalries, emotional and physical abuse, and accidental deaths—not to mention the endless sparring amongst the former university colleagues. One of the girls from the fateful summer returns in 2010 as a widow considering purchasing the chateau, but her identity is hidden until late in the book, a decision that comes off as frustrating rather than suspenseful. The author then cobbles together a perplexing ending, further derailing the promising premise. This confused coming-of-age story misses the mark. (July)

Publishers Weekly

02/01/2022

Ruby Ashby has always loved the Chateau des Sètes, her parents' gorgeous away-from-England home, located on the Cote d'Azur. But this August, strange things are happening—unexpected guests arrive, children are left untended, and Ruby starts feeling trapped. Two decades later, she arrives at the house as a young widow, intent on repurchasing it and reclaiming its glory days despite its subsequent terrible history. But someone else wants it, too. From the author of Madam; with a 75,000-copy first printing.

Library Journal