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The Secret History by Donna Tartt

FHS_Library — 2025-07-15 09:54:02 UTC

Under the influence of their charismatic classics professor, a group of clever, eccentric misfits at an elite New England college discover a way of thinking and living that is a world away from the humdrum existence of their contemporaries. But when they go beyond the boundaries of normal morality their lives are changed profoundly and for ever.

The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt

FHS_Library — 2025-07-15 09:54:11 UTC

For the young Theo Decker, left shiftless and alone after the horrific death of his mother in an explosion at New York’s Metropolitan Museum, that life-defining picture is Carel Fabritius’ The Goldfinch. Retrieved by Theo in the aftermath of the blast, somehow he never finds the courage to return it to its rightful owners. And thus begins Theo Decker’s descent into crime… Moving seamlessly from the frantic whirl of New York to the twitchy desert heat of Las Vegas, and from the archaic plunder of a downtown antiques store to the bohemian drawing rooms of high society Manhattan, Donna Tartt’s dazzling third novel tracks Theo’s precarious journey through 21^st century America. It is a journey that will combine love and heartache with police tape and shoot-outs, and confirms its author’s place as one of the great contemporary American novelists.

The Maidens by Alex Michaelides

FHS_Library — 2025-07-15 09:54:18 UTC

St Christopher's College, Cambridge, is a closed world to most. For Mariana Andros - a group therapist struggling through her private grief - it's where she met her late husband. For her niece, Zoe, it's the tragic scene of her best friend's murder. As memory and mystery entangle Mariana, she finds a society full of secrets, which has been shocked to its core by the murder of one of its own. Because behind its idyllic beauty is a web of jealousy and rage which emanates from an exclusive set of students known only as The Maidens. A group under the sinister influence of the enigmatic professor Edward Fosca. A man who seems to know more than anyone about the murders - and the victims. And the man who will become the prime suspect in Mariana's investigation - an obsession which will unravel everything... The Maidens is a story of love, and of grief - of what makes us who we are, and what makes us kill.

Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh

FHS_Library — 2025-07-15 09:54:53 UTC

Brideshead Revisited is Evelyn Waugh's stunning novel of duty and desire set amongst the decadent, faded glory of the English aristocracy in the run-up to the Second World War. The most nostalgic and reflective of Evelyn Waugh's novels, Brideshead Revisited looks back to the golden age before the Second World War. It tells the story of Charles Ryder's infatuation with the Marchmains and the rapidly disappearing world of privilege they inhabit. Enchanted first by Sebastian Flyte at Oxford, then by his doomed Catholic family, in particular his remote sister, Julia, Charles comes finally to recognise his spiritual and social distance from them.

Special Topics in Calamity Physics by Marisha Pessl

FHS_Library — 2025-07-15 10:02:44 UTC

As teenager Blue van Meer tells her story we are hurled into a dizzying world of murder and butterflies, womanizing and wandering, American McCulture, The Western Canon, political radicalism and juvenile crushisms. Structured around a syllabus for a Great Works of Literature class (with hand-drawn Visual Aids), Blue's wickedly funny yet poignant tale reveals how the imagination finds meaning in the most bewildering times, the ways people of all ages strive for connection, and how the darkest of secrets can set us free.

These Violent Delights by Micah Nemerever

FHS_Library — 2025-07-15 10:04:53 UTC

When Paul enters university in early 1970s Pittsburgh, it’s with the hope of moving past the recent death of his father. Sensitive, insecure, and like a stranger to his family, Paul feels isolated and alone. When he meets the worldly Julian in his freshman ethics class, Paul is immediately drawn to his classmate’s effortless charm. Paul will stop at nothing to prove himself worthy of their friendship. But Julian is as volatile and cruel as he is charismatic, and Paul begins to suspect that he can never live up to what Julian expects of him. As their friendship spirals into all-consuming intimacy, they each learn the lengths to which the other will go in order to stay together, their obsession ultimately hurtling them toward an act of irrevocable violence. From then on, everything changes… These Violent Delights is an exquisitely plotted excavation of the depths of human desire and the darkness it can unleash upon us...

The Truants by Kate Weinberg

FHS_Library — 2025-07-15 10:06:00 UTC

Jess Walker, middle child of a middle class family, has perfected the art of vanishing in plain sight. But when she arrives at a concrete university campus under flat, grey, East Anglian skies, her world flares with colour. Drawn into a tightly-knit group of rule breakers - led by their maverick teacher, Lorna Clay - Jess begins to experiment with a new version of herself. But the dynamic between the friends begins to darken as they share secrets, lovers and finally a tragedy. Soon Jess is thrown up against the question she fears most: what is the true cost of an extraordinary life?

Catherine House by Elisabeth Thomas

FHS_Library — 2025-07-15 10:07:16 UTC

During your three years at Catherine House you will have no contact with those in the outside world. Each of our students has been selected as someone who belongs here. You will give to Catherine and Catherine will give to you. We will not let each other down. Catherine House is a university like no other. Into its celebrated world steps Ines, a young woman who welcomes the school's isolation rather than its illustrious past. As the gates close and Ines finds herself start to be inevitably seduced by its magnetic power, she begins to realise the question isn't why she chose to come to Catherine House; but why Catherine House chose her.

Black Chalk by Christopher J Yates

FHS_Library — 2025-07-15 10:08:27 UTC

One game. Six students. Five survivors.

It was only ever meant to be a game. A game of consequences, of silly forfeits, childish dares. A game to be played by six best friends in their first year at Oxford University. But then the game changed: the stakes grew higher and the dares more personal, more humiliating, finally evolving into a vicious struggle with unpredictable and tragic results. Now, fourteen years later, the remaining players must meet again for the final round.

In the Woods by Tana French

FHS_Library — 2025-07-15 10:09:35 UTC

When he was twelve years old, Adam Ryan went playing in the woods with his two best friends. He never saw them again. Their bodies were never found, and Adam himself was discovered with his back pressed against an oak tree and his shoes filled with blood. He had no memory of what had happened. Twenty years on, Rob Ryan - the child who came back - is a detective in the Dublin police force. He's changed his name. No one knows about his past. Then a little girl's body is found at the site of the old tragedy and Rob is drawn back into the mystery. Knowing that he would be thrown off the case if his past were revealed, Rob takes a fateful decision to keep quiet but hope that he might also solve the twenty-year-old mystery of the woods.

The Four by Ellie Keel

FHS_Library — 2025-07-15 10:10:48 UTC

A delicious slice of dark academia perfect for fans of The Secret History, Keel's page-turning narrative revolves around a quartet of scholarship students at High Realms bound by a chilling secret.

Rose is sixteen when she arrives at High Realms boarding school, excited for the beginning of the rest of her life. By the time she leaves, she and the three other scholarship students will have made the choices that decide their future. Each one as heartbreaking and tragic as the last.

Vita Nostra by Marina Dyachenko & Sergey Dyachenko

FHS_Library — 2025-07-15 10:12:04 UTC

Our life is brief... Sasha Samokhina has just met Farit Kozhenikov and her life will never be the same again. Whilst on holiday, Sasha is asked by the mysterious Farit to undertake a strange task for him. Reluctantly, she obliges, and is rewarded with a shining golden coin. The more tasks she performs, the more coins Sasha receives until Farit instructs her – against the wishes of her family – to travel to a remote village and use her gold to gain entrance to the Institute of Special Technologies. Sasha quickly discovers this is no ordinary school. The books are impossible to read, the lessons obscure to the point of maddening, and the knowledge itself refuses to be remembered. Despite this, Sasha undergoes changes that defy matter and time; with experiences that are nothing like what she could have dreamed of before… but which are suddenly all she could ever want. But this learning comes at a cost. The school uses terror and coercion to keep students in line: should they transgress at all, their families pay a terrible price…

The Cloisters by Katy Hays

FHS_Library — 2025-07-15 10:13:23 UTC

Ann Stilwell arrives in New York City, hoping to spend her summer working at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Instead, she is assigned to The Cloisters, a gothic museum and garden renowned for its collection of medieval and Renaissance art. Drawn into a small circle of charismatic but enigmatic researchers, Ann happy to indulge some of their more outlandish theories, including the museum's curator who is fixated on tarot and the real possibility of predicting the future. But when Ann discovers a mysterious, once-thought lost deck of 15th-century Italian tarot cards she finds herself at the centre of a dangerous game of power, toxic friendship and ambition. And as the game being played within the Cloisters spirals out of control, Ann must decide who she trusts.

Yellowface by R F Kuang

FHS_Library — 2025-07-15 10:15:01 UTC

Kuang harnesses her satirical powers in this tantalising and deliciously humorous literary thriller that investigates ambition, greed and white privilege with deadly precision.

Athena Liu is a literary darling. June Hayward is literally nobody. But when June just happens to witness Athena die in a freak accident, she realises now is her chance to find fame. So what if that means stealing her friend’s work? So what if that means creating a new, racially ambiguous identity? So what if a social media scandal is about to blow her cover? As her lies mount up and threaten her stolen success, how far will June go to keep what she thinks she deserves… This is one hell of a story. It’s just not hers to tell.

Babel: Or the Necessity of Violence: an Arcane History of the Oxford Translators’ Revolution by R F Kuang

FHS_Library — 2025-07-15 10:16:26 UTC

Traduttore, traditore: An act of translation is always an act of betrayal. Oxford, 1836. The city of dreaming spires. It is the centre of all knowledge and progress in the world. And at its centre is Babel, the Royal Institute of Translation. The tower from which all the power of the Empire flows. Orphaned in Canton and brought to England by a mysterious guardian, Babel seemed like paradise to Robin Swift. Until it became a prison... but can a student stand against an empire?

An incendiary new novel from award-winning author R.F. Kuang about the power of language, the violence of colonialism, and the sacrifices of resistance.

A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik

FHS_Library — 2025-07-15 10:18:33 UTC

Enter a school of magic unlike any you have ever encountered. There are no teachers, no holidays, friendships are purely strategic, and the odds of survival are never equal. Once you're inside, there are only two ways out: you graduate or you die. El Higgins is uniquely prepared for the school's many dangers. She may be without allies, but she possesses a dark power strong enough to level mountains and wipe out untold millions - never mind easily destroy the countless monsters that prowl the school. Except, she might accidentally kill all the other students, too. So El is trying her hardest not to use it... that is, unless she has no other choice.

Wry, witty, endlessly inventive, and mordantly funny - yet with a true depth and fierce justice at its heart - this enchanting novel reminds us that there are far more important things than mere survival.

The Likeness by Tana French

FHS_Library — 2025-07-15 10:19:40 UTC

Still traumatised by her brush with a psychopath, Detective Cassie Maddox transfers out of the Murder squad and starts a relationship with fellow detective Sam O'Neill. When he calls her to the scene of his new case, she is shocked to find that the murdered girl is her double. What's more, her ID shows she is Lexie Madison - the identity Cassie used, years ago, as an undercover detective. With no leads, no suspects and no clues to Lexie's real identity, Cassie's old boss spots the opportunity of a lifetime: send Cassie undercover in her place, to tempt the killer out of hiding to finish the job.

If We Were Villains by M L RIo

FHS_Library — 2025-07-15 10:21:40 UTC

Blood will have blood… I lean forward on my elbows, so my face is only a few inches from his, so he hears every word when I lower my voice. “It must eat you alive, not knowing. Not knowing who, not knowing how, not knowing why. But you didn’t know him.” Oliver Marks has just served ten years for the murder of one of his closest friends - a murder he may or may not have committed. On the day he's released, he's greeted by the detective who put him in prison. Detective Colborne is retiring, but before he does, he wants to know what really happened ten years ago. As a young actor studying Shakespeare at an elite arts conservatory, Oliver noticed that his talented classmates seem to play the same roles onstage and off - villain, hero, tyrant, temptress - though Oliver felt doomed to always be a secondary character in someone else's story. But when the teachers change up the casting, a good-natured rivalry turns ugly, and the plays spill dangerously over into life. When tragedy strikes, one of the seven friends is found dead. The rest face their greatest acting challenge yet: convincing the police, and themselves, that they are blameless.

Bunny by Mona Awad

FHS_Library — 2025-07-15 10:22:07 UTC

We call them Bunnies because that is what they call each other. Seriously. Bunny. Samantha Heather Mackey is an outsider in her small, highly selective MFA program at Warren University. In fact, she is utterly repelled by the rest of her fiction writing cohort - a clique of unbearably twee rich girls who call each other 'Bunny'. But then the Bunnies issue her with an invitation and Samantha finds herself inexplicably drawn to their front door, across the threshold, and down their rabbit hole. Blending sharp satire with fairytale horror, Bunny provides a hilarious look at the dark side of female friendship from one of fiction's most original voices.

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

FHS_Library — 2025-07-15 10:22:13 UTC

Oscar Wilde's alluring novel of decadence and sin was a succes de scandale on publication. It follows Dorian Gray who, enthralled by his own exquisite portrait, exchanges his soul for eternal youth and beauty. Influenced by his friend Lord Henry Wotton, he is drawn into a corrupt double life, indulging his desires in secret while remaining a gentleman in the eyes of polite society. Only his portrait bears the traces of his depravity. This definitive edition includes a selection of contemporary reviews condemning the novel's immorality.

Graveyard Shift by M L Rio

FHS_Library — 2025-07-15 10:22:46 UTC

Every night, in the college's ancient cemetery, five people cross paths as they work the late shift: a bartender, a rideshare driver, a hotel receptionist, the steward of the derelict church that looms over them, and the editor-in-chief of the college paper, always in search of a story. One dark October evening in the defunct churchyard, they find a hole that wasn't there before. A fresh, open grave where no grave should be. But who dug it, and for whom? Before they go their separate ways, the gravedigger returns. As they trail him through the night, they realize he may be the key to a string of strange happenings around town that have made headlines for the last few weeks--and that they may be closer to the mystery than they thought.

Gentlemen & Players by Joanne Harris

FHS_Library — 2025-07-15 10:23:15 UTC

At St Oswald's, a long-established boys' grammar school in the north of England, a new year has just begun. For the staff and boys of the school, a wind of unwelcome change is blowing. Suits, paperwork and Information Technology rule the world; and Roy Straitley, the eccentric veteran Latin master, is finally - reluctantly - contemplating retirement. But beneath the little rivalries, petty disputes and everyday crises of the school, a darker undercurrent stirs. And a bitter grudge, hidden and carefully nurtured for thirteen years, is about to erupt.

The Wasp Factory by Ian M Banks

FHS_Library — 2025-07-15 10:23:28 UTC

'Two years after I killed Blyth I murdered my young brother Paul, for quite different reasons than I'd disposed of Blyth, and then a year after that I did for my young cousin Esmerelda, more or less on a whim. That's my score to date. Three. I haven't killed anybody for years, and don't intend to ever again. It was just a stage I was going through.' Enter - if you can bear it - the extraordinary private world of Frank, just sixteen, and unconventional, to say the least.

A Separate Peace by John Knowles

FHS_Library — 2025-07-15 10:24:21 UTC

An American coming-of-age tale during a period when the entire country was losing its innocence to the second world war. Set at a boys' boarding school in New England during the early years of World War II, A Separate Peace is a harrowing and luminous parable of the dark side of adolescence. Gene is a lonely, introverted intellectual. Phineas is a handsome, taunting, daredevil athlete. What happens between the two friends one summer, like the war itself, banishes the innocence of these boys and their world.

Stoner by John Williams

FHS_Library — 2025-07-15 10:24:47 UTC

William Stoner enters the University of Missouri at nineteen to study agriculture. A seminar on English literature changes his life, and he never returns to work on his father's farm. Stoner becomes a teacher. He marries the wrong woman. His life is quiet, and after his death his colleagues remember him rarely. Yet with truthfulness, compassion and intense power, this novel uncovers a story of universal value. Stoner tells of the conflicts, defeats and victories of the human race that pass unrecorded by history, and reclaims the significance of an individual life.

Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo

FHS_Library — 2025-07-15 10:25:22 UTC

Galaxy 'Alex' Stern is the most unlikely member of Yale's freshman class. A dropout and the sole survivor of a horrific, unsolved crime, Alex was hoping for a fresh start. But a free ride to one of the world's most prestigious universities was bound to come with a catch. Alex has been tasked with monitoring the mysterious activities of Yale's secret societies - well-known haunts of the rich and powerful. Now there's a dead girl on campus and Alex seems to be the only person who won't accept the neat answer the police and campus administration have come up with for her murder. Because Alex knows the secret societies are far more sinister and extraordinary than anyone ever imagined. They tamper with forbidden magic. They raise the dead. And sometimes they prey on the living...

The Lessons by Naomi Alderman

FHS_Library — 2025-07-15 10:27:34 UTC

James, always the outsider, enters Oxford - high seat of privilege, wealth and ambition. There he meets Mark Winters - dissolute, astonishingly, heartbreakingly rich, and pitilessly cruel - and the fellow students he has gathered around him: untouchable Emmanuella; on-again/off-again Simon and Franny; and passionate, true Jess. The nights - and many of the days - become one long party. Friendships are made, and broken. Lovers swapped, or dropped. It is all beguiling and bewitching. Everything James dreamed of but never quite believed in. But after university they are each cast out into an indifferent world. Free of Mark and his dark influence, they are lost to one another, until one night tragedy strikes...

The Little Friend by Donna Tartt

FHS_Library — 2025-07-15 10:28:12 UTC

One day is never, ever discussed by the Cleve family. The day that nine-year-old Robin was found hanging by the neck from a tree in their front garden. Twelve years later the family are no nearer to uncovering the truth of what happened to him. Inspired by Houdini and Robert Louis Stevenson, twelve-year-old Harriet sets out to find her brother's murderer - and punish him. But what starts out as a child's game soon becomes a dangerous journey into the menacing underworld of a small Mississippi town.

The Amber Fury by Natalie Haynes

FHS_Library — 2025-07-15 10:29:00 UTC

Alex Morris has lost everything: her relationship, her career and her faith in the future. Moving to Edinburgh to escape her demons, Alex takes a job teaching at a Pupil Referral Unit. It's a place for kids whose behaviour is so extreme that they cannot be taught in a regular classroom. Alex is fragile with grief and way out of her depth. Her fourth-year students are troubled and violent. Desperate to reach them, Alex turns to the stories she knows best. Greek tragedy isn't the most obvious way to win over such damaged children, yet these tales of fate, family and vengeance speak directly to them. Enthralled by the bloodthirsty justice of the ancient world, the teenagers begin to weave the threads of their own tragedy - one that Alex watches, helpless to prevent.

The Talented Mr Ripley by Patricia Highsmith

FHS_Library — 2025-07-15 10:29:46 UTC

Tom Ripley, charming yet petulant, reckless yet calculating, is one of the great literary anti-heroes, and his shocking actions across the jet-set Europe of the 1950s have thrilled and appalled millions of voracious readers.

Tom Ripley is struggling to stay one step ahead of his creditors and the law, when an unexpected acquaintance offers him a free trip to Europe and a chance to start over. Ripley wants money, success and the good life and he's willing to kill for it. When his new-found happiness is threatened, his response is as swift as it is shocking.

The Fury by Alex Michaelides

FHS_Library — 2025-09-02 10:17:34 UTC

It begins with a phone call. And it ends with a murder.. Seven friends gather on an idyllic Greek island. Among them: the actress, the playwright, the housekeeper, the second husband and the wayward son. There’s jealousy, betrayal, unrequited love, a handful of secrets and too many lies. Thirty-six hours after they arrive one of them will be dead. You’ll never guess who. You’ll never guess why.