⭐️ An Irish Times, Harpers Bazaar, Economist and Observer Book Pick for 2025
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The Wildelings
A vivid and compulsive story of obsession, control and guilt, set in Nineties Dublin – perfect for fans of dark academia
“I was hooked from the very start”
“Lisa Harding’s third novel, The Wildelings, arrives to fill the Secret History-shaped hole in your lives… Gothic and gloriously entertaining”
— Alex Preston. The Guardian
“Propulsive…with echoes of Donna Tartt’s The Secret History…this is dark academia at its most gripping.”
— The Economist
“Dark, blistering and full of theatrics... An electric exploration of control, guilt, and one young woman’s fight to free herself. I was hooked from the very start”
— Rachel Joyce, best-selling author
“I was gripped by this dark and thrilling fable - Harding is the new Donna Tartt.”
— Dominic West, Award winning Actor
“The real stagecraft lies in Harding’s ability to excavate the still beating heart of a shared past and bonds beneath those brutalities. Riveting ,addictive and, ultimately, beautifully human”
— Una Mannion
With pitch pure dialogue, and a plot that weaves in and around the theatre until the edges of reality blur, Lisa Harding presents us with a psychologically gripping story about personal manipulation and the imbalance of power in intimate relationships. A powerful performance
— Jane Urquhart
Her work explores desire, addiction and the darker edges of human behaviour with wit and psychological precision.
— Irish Independent
“In the striking latest from Harding... (she) crafts complex characters and explores the messy contours of a female friendship.... It’s a bracing tale.”
— Publishers Weekly
“Remarkable, shocking…I’ve always loved Lisa’s visceral writing, and this, her best yet, may well become my novel of the year.”
— Irish Examiner
“As Harding’s previous novels have demonstrated she is unafraid to write complex, contradictory, non-conforming women who are authentic products of their past hurts...this novel is an excellent illustration of the writerly sensibilities that have won her past acclaim.”
— The Irish Times
“A searing exploration into our deepest desires and insecurities…I adored it.”
— Heather Darwent, Sunday Times Best-selling author
‘A vicious, sardonic, cruel book… very dramatic… I lapped it up.’
RYAN TUBRIDY, Books of the Year (Bookshelf/Apple Podcasts, Evoke.ie and the Irish Mail on Sunday)
“Full of brooding menace. Very dark, but a riveting novel.”
— Irish Independent
“A spectacular tour de force”
— The Gloss, the best books to read this summer
“If The Secret History got blackout high, fell into a fever dream, and woke up whispering terrible secrets into your ear, it would look a lot like The Wildelings. Lisa Harding has given us a dark academia gem: sharp as broken glass, lush as a poisoned garden.”
Lisa Harding will haunt readers with the psychological drama of The Wildelings, a compulsively readable novel in which a woman looks back on her college days and a long-lost friendship...Harding gives Jessica a self-excoriating, incisive, bitter, and evocative first-person voice. The Wildelings' inexorable plot is like the proverbial train wreck: shocking, electric, impossible to turn from. Its psychological tumult verges on horror. With this atmospheric roller coaster of a novel, Harding offers pulsing intensity, gut-wrenching emotional upheaval, and high drama in every sense.'
— Shelf Awareness
Irish novelist Harding’s incisive character studies and sharp descriptions of manipulation and social pressures make her writing feel alive.”
— Booklist
“ Enthralling, a haunting exploration of friendships and relationships gone sour.”
— NB Magazine
“The Wildelings is a shiver-inducing delight. I found myself reading when I should have been doing a million other things, unable to tear myself away from these bewitching characters, Harding’s beautiful prose, and the prickly suspicion that a dark surprise was waiting for me on every page.”
— Lauren Grodstein, author of A DOG IN GEORGIA and WE MUST NOT THINK OF OURSELVES“
‘A darkly lyrical and compelling novel about power, obsession, and the fragility of intimacy. A thrilling excavation of the blurred lines between friendship and the more dangerous shadows of youth. Harding crafts a masterful study of vulnerability, control, and the uneasy art of self-reinvention’
— ELAINE FEENEY
“Lisa Harding is at her best when she is fearless. She writes with defiance and impudent energy, at the centre of which is care for a person’s soul. And The Wildelings is alive with this. It is a carefully merciless portrait of what it’s like to be in the thrall of parasitic charm, double-edged with warning: beware yourselves, creative vampires, or those whose skins you leave empty.”
— Cynan Jones
“The Wildlelings is addictively entertaining”
— Bookreporter
About the Author
Lisa Harding is a former actress, playwright and novelist. Her first novel Harvesting won the Kate O’Brien Award and was shortlisted for an Irish Book Award and the Kerry Group Prize.