'Efficient, and unsettling... Davids assembles the requisite parts of a Gothic novel -- a hysterical woman, a haunted dwelling, a perverse family secret -- into an elegant narrative' The New York Times Book Review

'Gothic touches combine with elements of magical realism and real-life historical horrors to forge a chilling fable that's at once familiar and singular. It's a stunner' Publishers Weekly

'This beautifully assured novel interweaves the ghostly and the historical until both feel simultaneously real and imagined' Kirkus (starred review)

An exhilarating tale of twisted desire and the unexpected shape of justice, for readers of The Safekeep

'I come highly recommended to Mrs Hattingh through sentences I tell her I cannot read.'

1920, a small, unnamed city in a colonial empire. Soraya Matas believes she has found the ideal job as a personal maid to the eccentric Mrs Hattingh, whose beautiful, decaying home is not far from the Muslim Quarter where Soraya lives with her parents. As Soraya settles into her new role, she discovers that the house is alive with spirits.

While Mrs Hattingh eagerly awaits her son's visit from London, she offers to help Soraya stay in touch with her fiancé Nour by writing him letters on her behalf. So begins a strange weekly meeting where Soraya dictates and Mrs. Hattingh writes - a ritual that binds the two women to one another and eventually threatens the sanity of both.

'Slim, taut, haunting... an utterly beguiling read' LUCY CALDWELL

'The Cape Town that Nadia Davids summons up in her invaluable body of work is a riven, achingly sad place of shadows, quite unlike the comfortable, sleepy Mother City of the colonial imagination' JM COETZEE

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• Literature & Fiction

• Publication Date: January 15, 2026
• Text-to-Speech: Disabled
• Lending: Disabled
• Print Length: 240 Pages
• File Size: 21 KB