The Girl at the Door – A tense, provocative and nuanced novel about a rape accusation (Hardback)

Our summary description

As Independent Scottish booksellers, we write all of our descriptions personally, we hope you enjoy this one.

Life in the commune is built on shared ideals and careful balance. The narrator believes she understands its rhythms, the quiet negotiations that hold everything together, until a young woman appears at her door with an accusation that cannot be absorbed or explained away.

The claim is direct and devastating. It names the narrator’s husband, a respected academic, and forces a reckoning not only with what may have happened, but with the structures that have allowed everyone to feel safe. As the accusation ripples outward, loyalties fracture and certainties falter. Silence becomes as charged as speech, and every response carries consequence.

The Girl at the Door examines what happens when private belief collides with public responsibility. It is a novel about power, complicity, and the ways communities protect themselves from uncomfortable truths. Calm and unsettling, it asks how far trust can stretch before it breaks, and what remains when the stories we rely on no longer hold.