4 Stars from me
Finding this book was a bit like finding a lost shoe as my mind swiftly drew back to a time when I devoured books like Malory Towers and St Clare’s, fascinated by these other worlds inhabited by girls whose lives were so utterly different to my own.
The Night Stairs, for me, is the grown up version of these books with an added sprinkle of religion and Erin Kelly has delivered this beautifully by setting the story around a tight core of characters, within the boarding school setting.
There are familiar themes of entitlement, snobbery, bullying, tradition, coming of age, secrets and shame, set in the most wonderful backdrop of St Cordula’s school which seemingly runs to the potentially outdated views of the nuns. But no matter how clued up and modern each new cohort of students is, they all fear the watchword of the ghost of Sister Matilda.
This felt like a long read, but the story was intelligently plotted and delivered and I was invested in the outcomes of both the girls and the school itself.
A big recommend from me for anyone who can remember reading ‘just one more chapter of St Clare’s or Malory Towers’ when they were supposed to be sleeping.
My thanks to the author, Netgalley and Random House UK, Vintage |for an ARC in return for an honest review.
Blurb: When schoolgirls start fainting one after the other at a convent boarding school, old legends twist into new scandals. From irresistible bestselling storyteller Erin Kelly comes the new thriller that will leave you craving to read more.
Centuries of tradition are coming to an end at St Cordula’s school. Deputy Head, Fiona Fox, is about to preside over a controversial move to save it from ruin. But it’s not easy to change things at a school this old. Legend has it that the ghost of fifteenth-century nun, Sister Matilda, will keep St Cordula’s safe. But only as long as the words ‘GOD FORGIVE ME’, scrawled by Matilda on a chapel staircase wall before she fell to her death, are repainted every year.
The words have only been allowed to fade once, in 2002. But then, fits of vertigo spread through the pupils, and a second girl fell to her death on the night stairs. Only three people know the truth of what happened on the night of the tragedy.
Now the vertigo is back, and Fiona must stem the outbreak before it threatens St Cordula’s future, or worse, another girl loses her life. But when one of her pupils begins a dangerous investigation into the past, old secrets start to twist into new scandals…
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