The Ophelia Girls

This is a potent, mesmerising portrait of girlhood desire, betrayal, beauty and death, sensuously written and passionately told – Emma Stonex, author of The Lamplighters
A knowingly put together page-turner; a potent blend of art, beauty, awakening desire and mortality that seduces the reader as much as the cast * Daily Mail *
A bruising and beautiful novel about girlhood and desire. Set over two heady summers, The Ophelia Girls perfectly captures the power and vulnerability of being a teenage girl. Within its flower-strewn pages, girls float carelessly down rivers and fall in love with devastating consequences. It’s an immersive and intoxicating summer read with the long-lasting feel of a classic. I was captivated by it – Molly Aitken, author of The Island Child
Set over the course of two stifling British summers, The Ophelia Girls is a dreamy exploration of the interior life of teenage girls and the tangled relationship between mothers and daughters. In her hypnotic prose Jane Healey captures the slipperiness of the adolescence experience, the thirst young women have for independence, and the sometimes perilous ways they attempt to define themselves. A siren song of a novel, The Ophelia Girls seduces as much as it disturbs – Ellie Eaton, author of The Divines
The Ophelia Girls is a novel saturated with beauty, menace, longing, secrets – and with passions deep enough to drown in. It’s a sinister, suspenseful page-turner that gripped me tightly and still hasn’t fully let go – Clare Beams, author of The Illness Lesson
This is a vivid, sensuous novel that captures the feelings of passion and devastation of girls on the brink of womanhood and life itself, and I can’t recommend it enough – Anna Bailey, bestselling author of Tall Bones
I absolutely adored this exquisite novel. It is dark and sultry and beautiful and terrible. All the good stuff. The characters get tangled in so many complex strands of love, secrecy and obsession. And it perfectly captures the brilliance and terror of being a teenage girl – Hazel Barkworth, author of Heatstroke
A compelling story of teenage innocence and infatuation, blended with the illicit desires and murky intentions of adults * Woman’s Weekly *
This novel has a sinewy, enchanting style that draws us into the reverie-like world of the river and its dangers and, like the characters it has so bewitched, never lets us go: it’s powerful stuff * The Big Issue *

Jane Healey studied English Literature at Warwick University. She was short-listed for the 2013 Bristol Short Story Prize, the 2014 Costa Short Story Award, the 2016 Commonwealth Short Story Prize and the 2017 Penguin Random House WriteNow mentoring programme. The Ophelia Girls is her second novel. Her first, The Animals at Lockwood Manor, was published in 2020 and won the HWA Debut Crown Award. She lives in Edinburgh.

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