JOHN HARDING
The Girl Who Couldn’t Read
The Borough Press
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London, SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain by The Borough Press 2014
Copyright © John Harding 2014
Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2014
Cover photograph Susan Fox/Trevillion Images
John Harding asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780007324255
Ebook Edition © August 2014 ISBN: 9780007562107
Version: 2015-03-18
New England, The 1890s
When a young doctor begins work at an isolated mental asylum, he is expected to fall in with the shocking regime for treating the patients. He is soon intrigued by one patient, a strange amnesiac girl who is fascinated by books but cannot read. He embarks upon a desperate experiment to save her but when his own dark past begins to catch up with him, he realises it is she who is his only hope of escape.
In this chilling literary thriller from a master storyteller, everyone has something to hide and no one is what they seem.
‘A tight gothic thriller … unbearably tense’
Financial Times
‘Genuinely exciting and shocking’
Independent
‘The Girl Who Couldn’t Read will prove to be a delight for anyone with a love of Victorian fiction, the work of Sarah Waters or who takes pleasure in a bloody good story well told. Harding is a master storyteller and has produced another classic’
Me And My Big Mouth
‘Brilliantly creepy’
Daily Mirror
‘Hugely gripping … the most perfect ending in fiction, I swear’
Heartsong
‘A tour de force’
Daily Mail
‘Full of disturbing atmosphere, mysterious characters, and a page-turning plot. I flew through it’
A Literary Mind
‘Thoroughly ingenious and captivating … a scarily good story’
The Oxford Times
‘Nothing prepares you for the chillingly ruthless finale’
The Times
‘The tension is palpable. Leaves the reader gasping’
We Love This Book
‘A fantastic gothic horror story set in an asylum for women in 1890’s New England. It will grab you, excite you and leave you eager for more’
The Moustachioed Reader
‘Harding winds things nice and tight … brilliant tension … The eeriness pervades like a dank fog’
New Zealand Herald
For the book-lovers of Brazil
Contents