Before the Ruins

A tale of friendship, secrets, and lost treasures

Victoria Gosling author

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Profile Books Ltd

Published:6th May '21

Should be back in stock very soon

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Before the Ruins cover

A group of friends engages in a lifelong game that unearths dark secrets and tests their bonds. Before the Ruins explores friendship and betrayal.

In Before the Ruins, a long, hot summer sets the stage for a game that will span a lifetime. Andy and her friends, restless after their final exams, stumble upon a decaying manor house and quickly become enmeshed in a web of intrigue and danger. Their encounter with David, a charming yet elusive boy on the run, ignites a series of events that will forever alter their lives. The group, inspired by a long-lost diamond necklace rumored to be hidden on the property, embarks on a quest that transforms innocent play into a complex narrative of friendship, betrayal, and the passage of time.

As the years unfold, the seemingly simple game evolves, revealing deep-seated resentments and secrets that have been buried for decades. Andy believes she has moved on from her past, but when she receives a call about Peter's disappearance, she is drawn back into the shadows of her youth. The search for answers forces her to confront not only the mystery surrounding Peter but also the tangled relationships and unresolved issues that have haunted her and her friends since that fateful summer.

Before the Ruins is a captivating exploration of memory, loyalty, and the consequences of choices made in youth. With rich, evocative writing and a haunting undertone, this debut novel by a talented author invites readers to reflect on the complexities of friendship and the impact of the past on the present.

Engrossing, beguiling, and with an undertow of menace, Before the Ruins is a masterly debut from a richly talented author. -- Sarah Waters
Victoria Gosling has crafted a perfectly balanced literary page-turner filled with evocative detail about rural youth paired with a genuinely thrilling mystery. -- Ben Fergusson
Four disaffected teenagers, a deserted manor, an unlimited supply of drugs, and a cache of potentially explosive secrets. What could go right? Before the Ruins, Victoria Gosling's stunner of a debut novel, is rich with mystery and moral disorder. It put me in mind of Edward St. Aubyn and Donna Tart; dark, fierce, and totally addictive. -- Valerie Martin
Reading this reminded me of being young and tucked into an Agatha Christie. It granted the same delicious pleasure as I watched the puzzle put back together. -- Rowan Hisayo Buchanan
I don't know the last time I enjoyed a book this much. Unbelievably tense and incredibly smart, Victoria's Gosling's story about four friends playing a truly terrifying game of cat-and-mouse in a deserted manor house is the perfect ménage à trois of superb plotting, haunting characters, and gorgeous, atmospheric prose. Tana French fans will devour this. -- Aimee Molloy
A stellar debut... The gorgeous, poetic prose perfectly complements the suspenseful plot. * Publishers Weekly starred review *
Lush and razor-sharp, Before the Ruins is both deliciously gothic and completely contemporary. Every single page is absorbing and surprising. -- Flynn Berry, author of Under the Harrow
Gosling is a stylish, sophisticated writer, and we realize that we are following Andy on what amounts to a grand scavenger hunt for the truth. Rain falls relentlessly, and the ensuing floods form an ominous backdrop to a story that becomes darker as it goes along. * The New York Times *
Atmospheric... Gosling uses her richly ruinous setting as a jumping off point to examine class, innocence, morality, and loss * LitHub's Most Anticipated Books of 2021 *
A whip-smart debut * Shelf Awareness *
Wonderfully sophisticated and beautifully conceived... a captivating and thought-provoking novel * New York Journal of Books *
Richly atmospheric and exquisitely written, Before the Ruins is wistful and haunting, hopeful and beautiful. * BookPage *
Gosling's atmospheric debut takes a familiar theme - the way the things we do as teenagers reverberate in later life - but treats it with care and empathy... the finely drawn characters, especially the spiky narrator Andrea, linger in the memory * Mail on Sunday *

ISBN: 9781788163798

Dimensions: 220mm x 140mm x 34mm

Weight: 440g

320 pages

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