A difficult one to rate and review, I was teetering around 3 stars for most of this book as the slow pace and short, choppy sentences weren't really working for me and in the end the conclusion of the story upped the rating for me to 3.5 (not that much else happens, but I liked the emotional note the book ended on).

Stylistically I think this one will be divisive - some will love the short sentences and lack of division between dialogue and prose (which I like in some books but here it was too confusing and pulled me out of the flow of reading trying to figure out which character said what) and some will very much not. What I did enjoy was the depth of character of the protagonist, her interior reflections on her relationships with others and her own sense of self. I liked the depiction of butch lesbianism present in both the protagonist and the Housemistress, and the way they gravitated towards each other as kindred spirits and in the end I found myself more emotionally invested in that friendship than the romantic affair between the protagonist and Mrs S. Thematically I liked how the protagonist grapples with the heterosexuality Mrs S projects into the world, vs the protagonist's own sense of self and the contrast between that as well as how age plays into that relationship, but ultimately it wasn't convincing enough for me to get over that hurdle and believe they loved each other in the end. Weird and frustrating one, I feel like the story worked for me but not the style in which it was told. Also was driving me crazy not knowing what time period this was supposed to be set in.

v good v sexy, prose style might take a bit of getting used to but really works to capture a sense of desperate, frenetic, young love. i had a good time w this!

Not my usual read but always nice to step into the unknown and embrace a story and a situation very unfamiliar to me. An unknown Australian lesbian is working as a matron in an exclusive English boarding school for girls. Mrs S (we only ever know her initial) is the headmistress and oversees the operation of the school helped by Mr S. We very soon become aware of the matron’s sexual orientation as she becomes obsessed with the elegant Mrs S who surprisingly returns this affection. There is an unwritten sense of sexual tension and when ignited explodes in the pages of the book. I felt that these scenes were well expressed and not overtly sexual written in a way that kept the readers attention whilst slowly building to a somewhat predictable climax (no pun intended). Many thanks to netgalley for an advance ARC in exchange for an honest review and that is what I have written.

Mrs S by K Patrick
Publication Date 8 June 2023

Mrs S is a literary love story that examines queer identity and desire. The blurb had me intrigued from the second I read it, and K Patrick has delivered on the premise.

An atmospheric read set in the smothering, cloying British summer during a heatwave, the story is a slow burn that had me completely absorbed.

The characters are named as only the matron, the girls, the nurse, the house mistress and course Mrs S (and Mr S). This only adds to the atmosphere and intensity in the book. There's a feel of dark academia (the novel is set in an elite all girls boarding school with all its restraints and rules and history) which compliments the overall tone.

The narration feels a little disjointed, along with the writing style but this serves to intensify our protagonists internal narrative. She's moved to the UK from Australia, taking the role of matron at a boarding school, and found herself an outsider, at odds with her role and infatuated with Mrs S, the head masters wife. The erotic tension builds steadliy, a look here, a touch there - is it imagined or real? The story simmers with want and lust "The pressure of our mouths is not enough. Her desire is equal to mine, she shocks me. I thought that I was alone, that I had lured her in, mistakenly assumed a passivity."

Mrs S is a sensitive, sensual and intimate portrayal of someone who has found themselves cast afloat - I loved it. Wholly recommended.

"She puts her lips a moment away from mine. I turn to water. Fast as the river."
- Stunning.

Thank you to Netgalley and 4th Estate for an ARC in exchange for a honest review.

Is Mrs S by K Patrick dark academia? Hard to say, Since Tiktok has resurrected The Secret History to a new generation, new books that take place in boarding schools and at leafy American colleges have all started to feel the same. But not Mrs S. K Patrick's writing is rich, so rich that Patrick is able to keep the plot simple and without needless ornamentation. You will read this book for the line-level writing, not the plot, which is slow, steady and undramatic. This book is a slow burn, and its protagonist feels like one of the most original characters I have read in a really long time.

An excellent book, better than anything I was expecting.

Coming of age story captures the uncertainty of adolescence and the abuse of one in power at a girls school

I really enjoyed this. I found myself a bit turned off by the writing initially - the shortness of the sentences in the opening paragraphs made me feel tired. But once I got used to it, the choppiness began to feel nice, and appropriate - sort of awkward and unsure, restricted, like the narrator.

I loved the weird, brusque friendship between the narrator and the Housemistress. So often in this kind of story the narrator is the only queer in the village - the (almost always closeted) object of their desire notwithstanding. To have other queers present was wonderful, and especially without any romantic tension between them and the narrator. Queer friendship is wildly underrepresented in fiction, in my opinion.

I am ambivalent about coy 'out of time' settings. Who is the dead author?! But I do like the anonymity of everything, at the same time. The Girls. The drama teacher. The girl who punched the boy. Mr and Mrs S are the only ones who even get initials! It gives it a kind of archetypal feel that I rather enjoy, even if that doesn't feel quite earned.

I was also very moved by the narrator's relationship with their gender, and their navigation of that with other characters. This really resonated with me:

"And yet understanding is everything to her, she cannot see the ego in it, her need to grasp it all, rather than accept what she does not know. It's fine, I reassure myself. At least the question is over. I don't want to push. My heart rate levels, the certain self-loathing that comes with relief. I should have more pride."

The certain self-loathing that comes with relief. Urgh.

My thanks to Fourth Estate and NetGalley for the ARC.

Mrs. S by K. Patrick

Thank you Netgalley for the ARC ebook for an unbiased review.

This was a book that on the face of it, I should've loved from start to finish. It was touted as an LGBTQIA novel. Sadly, I had numerous problems with the book. First and foremost, the writing style. It made it far harder than it should have been to read. Why? The complete lack of speech marks, quotation marks, even line breaks between paragraphs, that were on occasion quite long, meant it felt like a burden to read, because all my concentration was on trying to maintain who said what and when.

I'm not against this style. But in moderation. This was not in moderation. Imagine reading a whole book with nothing but words, whether description, individual dialogue (internal or external) or dialogue between other characters, yet nothing to break it up. Nothing to indicate who was speaking when.

I honestly nearly didn't finish the book, which is a rare event.

The story premise itself wasn't without merit. And honestly that's the one thing keeping me from saying 1 star. As it is, I'm loathe to even give it 3 stars because of how difficult it was to read and how close I came to not finishing it, so 2 stars it is.

It was a slog. Not a book I would pick up again, nor recommend. I hate giving such poor reviews when I know any writer puts a lot of effort into their writing. However, I also can't be sentimental on how this made me feel as the reader.
Great idea. Poorly executed.

2/5 stars 🌟

'Miss'. That is what the girls of this elite boarding school call her. It fits her as ill as the official title of 'Matron'. 'Mrs. S' is what they term the headmaster's wife and the lovely roll of letters suit her confidence in the space she takes up in this world. These two figures differ so greatly and yet are helplessly borne into the other's orbit, to either shatter against each other or conjoin completely.

This is a book of extraordinary sorrow and delightful beauty. Upon each page is etched such longing that it pierces the reader's heart. Sensual and sexual, this is a novel that awakens the senses with its sublime abundance.

The two women at the centre of it strike such opposing figures and portray stereotypical female roles. Watching their awakening, in the arms of the other, was a beautiful sight to witness. It was, also, always painful; sometimes brutal in its violence and other times agonising in its aching longing. The overflowing emotions ensured this a novel I tore through and one I will also return to, many times.

Dazzling and evocative, Patrick is a phenomenal writer. It’s hard to compare this book to other work, because it is truly outstanding in its own right. Patrick transports you to the oppressive sticky heat of a British summer, infused with the tension of a young queer person who falls in love with their own Mrs Robinson. An excellent and eye-opening work of fiction.

Mrs S is a simmering novel about a love affair between staff at a girls' boarding school. The narrator has moved from Australia to England to work as the matron at a boarding school, where she finds herself an outsider, not only in accent, but in being obviously queer. She becomes fascinated with Mrs S, the headmaster's wife, who seems so different, and yet they are drawn together, eventually starting a secret affair over the summer, but they have to decide what it means for them.

I keep hearing about this book and it lives up to the hype, written in a beautiful way that defies specificity (for example, no characters have names—Mr and Mrs S being the closest—and all of the students are just Girls) and yet tells a very particular story of butch identity and embodiment. Though the love story is the titular focus and centre of the plot, the book also tells a story of a butch lesbian finding both community, through a fellow staff member, and more of a sense of herself and how she wants her body to be. The rigid structures of the school serve as a backdrop to this more fluid, queer sense of being, and the students' transgressions against the rules, whether justified or unjustified rules, bring a parallel sense of roles, rules, and defiance.

As a literary love story, readers might focus on the writing and fluid style, but it feels that the depiction of queerness and butchness is particularly crucial and the style cannot be separated from that. Mrs S is a book to languish with, yet with plenty to think about.

This is all about the dazzling writing for me. Patrick has made this style their own and tells a not unfamiliar story in an alluring, characterful voice that colours this book.

There's an intimacy about the writing which takes some leads from Woolfian stream of consciousness but which collapses distinctions between interior and exterior, and also, at points, erases the differences between 'she' and 'I': a syntactical disintegration or queering that both echoes and stands in for the relationship between the narrator and Mrs S.

By turns moody, sensual, and emotional, this also manages to maintain a sense of humour, a lack of earnestness and preciousness that can often mar this kind of postmodern styling.

Smart, entertaining, impressive, seductive - K Patrick is an author to watch.