A Girl Left the Room

From prize-winning poet Ulrikka Gernes comes her debut novel acclaimed for its bold exposing of an art world that preys on the girls it turns into muses.

When you're fourteen, there is no afterwards.

It all begins when Tanja meets Eg. Handsome, grey-eyed, he is a friend of her parents and a teller of stories. Soon, he begins to write-sending letters that arrive at her home in the Swedish forest, drawing her deeper into a fated love offering escape from an isolated childhood.

Tanja steps through a door into adult experience from which there is no return, a relationship where desire and excitement give way to shame and control. Years later, now a poet armed with the language to name what happened, she finds a box of Eg's mildewed letters and begins to read.

Hauntingly lyrical and fearlessly honest, A Girl Left the Room is the story of one woman's fight to reclaim the girl she once was.

'Gripping, chilling, and extraordinarily clear-eyed. A novel that everybody should read' Rosie Price, author of What Red Was

'An entire world of complicity unfolds moment by moment. It kept me pinned to the page' Sîan Hughes, author of Pearl

'It's compelling. It's shocking. It's hypnotic in its clarity. A stunning debut from one of Denmark's leading poets' Christina Patterson, author of Outside, the Sky is Blue

'So blunt, so well written, Lolita speaking out, telling her truth. A superb book' Dorthe Nors, author of Mirror, Shoulder, Signal