The Ophelia Girls

Summer, 1973. Teenage Ruth and her four friends spend the scorching summer days in the river, recreating tableaus of the drowning Ophelia and other tragic heroines. But as autumn draws nearer, real tragedy has found them. Summer, 1997. Ruth returns to
her childhood home with her husband and three children, including her eldest daughter seventeen-year-old Maeve. However when Stuart, an old family friend comes to stay, the uneasy relationship between mother and daughter is pushed to its limit. For
Stuarts arrival is a reminder of a death in Ruths past, while Maeve is feeling more alive than ever As the heat of the summer burns, how long can the family go before long-held secrets threaten to burst their banks and drown them all? Set between two
fateful summers, Jane Healeys The Ophelia Girls is a visceral, heady exploration of illicit desire, infatuation and the perils and power of being a young woman.