NPR BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR
The witty and entrancing story of a young woman trapped in a ramshackle English playhouseâand the mysterious figure who threatens the theater's very survival
The year is 1901. Englandâs beloved queen has died, and her aging son has finally taken the throne. In the eastern city of Norwich, bright and inquisitive young Edith Holler spends her days among the boisterous denizens of the Holler Theatre, warned by her domineering father that the playhouse will literally tumble down if she should ever leave its confines. Fascinated by tales of the city she knows only from afar, she decides to write a play of her own: a stage adaptation of the legend of Mawther Meg, a monstrous figure said to have used the blood of countless children to make the local delicacy known as Beetle Spread. But when her father suddenly announces his engagement to a peculiar, imposing woman named Margaret Unthank, heir to the actual Beetle Spread fortune, Edith scrambles to protect her father, the theatre, and her playâthe one thing thatâs truly hersâfrom the newcomerâs sinister designs.
Teeming with unforgettable characters and illuminated by the authorâs trademark fantastical illustrations, Edith Holler is a surprisingly modern fable of one young womanâs struggle to escape her familyâs controlâand to reveal inconvenient truths about the way children are used.