Published in 2020
304 pages
Harriet Walker is the fashion editor of The Times. She has been a newspaper journalist for more than ten years and has also written for Vogue, Elle, and Harper’s Bazaar, among others. Born in Glasgow and raised in Sheffield, Harriet Walker studied English at Trinity College, Cambridge, and now lives in South London with her husband and their daughter. The New Girl is her first novel.
What is this book about?
How far would someone go to replace you? A new mother on maternity leave grows increasingly paranoid about her ambitious young temp in this Hitchcockian debut from the fashion editor at The Times (UK) .
Margot is the object of every woman’s envy: as an editor at Haute, she has a glamorous job, a beautiful new baby girl, a seemingly perfect life. But when Margot’s lifelong friend, Winnie, loses her own newborn boy, their shared dream of pushing strollers together turns to ash. And then there is the matter of Margot’s maternity temp: bright, plucky, ambitious Maggie–the young woman Margot chose, but who now seems to be trying to eclipse her in every possible way.
When a cyber-stalker emerges, mocking Margot’s façade of perfection and threatening to expose a dark secret she’s spent years repressing, Margot feels attacked from all sides. Soon, the innocent preoccupations of motherhood spiral quickly–and perhaps lethally–into a frightening and irretrievable paranoia.
The New Girl is whiplash-paced, and a harrowing look into the profound sense of insecurity that prowls deep in the psyches of women everywhere.
