Olivie Blake for Girl Dinner
Sunday 16th November
Pilrig St. Paul's / LARCH, Leith Walk, Edinburgh EH6 5AH
6.30pm
7pm
"A book that whets your appetite before devouring you whole. Girl Dinner is cunning, charged and - just as you're comfortable - a profound shock.' ~ Chloe Gong, author of Immortal Longings
Olivie Blake, bestselling author of The Atlas Six, returns to celebrate her latest novel: Girl Dinner. Packed with twists, turns, and the aching reality of female rage, this is Olivie Blake as you have never read before.
The event will be chaired by T. L. Huchu, a writer whose short fiction has appeared in publications such as Lightspeed, Interzone, Analog Science Fiction and Fact. The Library of the Dead won Best Novel at the Nommo Awards, presented by the African Speculative Fiction Society. Between projects, he translates fiction from Shona into English and the reverse. He is the author of the Edinburgh Nights series.
Good girls deserve a treat.
The House is the most exclusive sorority on campus, and all its alumni are beautiful, high-achieving and respected.
After a freshman year she would rather forget, sophomore Nina Kaur knows being accepted into The House is the first step to the brightest possible future. The House will surely ease her fears of failure and protect her from those who see a young woman on her own as prey.
Meanwhile, adjunct professor Dr Sloane Hartley is struggling. After eighteen months at home with her newborn daughter, Sloane's clothes don't fit right; her girl-dad husband isn't as present as he thinks he is; and even the few hours a day she's apart from her child fill her psyche with paralyzing ennui. When invited to be The House's academic liaison, Sloane enviously drinks in a level of collective perfection that Sloane desperately craves.
As Nina and Sloane each get drawn deeper into the arcane rituals of the sisterhood, they learn that living well comes with bloody costs. And when they are finally invited to the table, they will have to decide just how much they can stomach in the name of solidarity and power.
This is a powerful and darkly fun novel about ambition, lust and eating your fill - as wealthy moms and sorority girls practice a sinister new wellness trend . . .