Author(s): Emily O'Grady

Fiction | Stella Prize 2024

A compelling novel of three women and their dark secrets from the award-winning author of The Yellow House.

Three women. Three secrets. One weekend.

Alison is an actress who no longer acts, Patrick a musician past his prime. The eccentric couple live an isolated, debauched existence in an old manor house in Scotland, a few miles outside their village.

That is, until Patrick's teenage daughter, Neve, flees Australia to spend a year abroad with her doting, if unreliable, father, and Alison, the stepmother she barely knows.

On the weekend of Neve's eighteenth birthday, her father insists on a celebratory feast to mark her coming of age. Despite Neve's objections, her mother Shannon arrives in Scotland to join the celebrations. What none of them know is that Shannon has arrived with a hidden agenda that has the potential to shatter the delicate facade of the loving, if dysfunctional, family.

Feast is the story of three women connected beyond blood, and what happens when their darkest secrets are hauled into the light.

Praise for The Yellow House:

'A dark, unsettling debut with chilling momentum...' The Sydney Morning Herald

'An astounding debut.' - Brisbane News

'O'Grady is a talented storyteller; it's her narrative skills that make this grim tome so compelling.' - Australian Book Review

'Creepy and atmospheric...It's a measure of the skill of the writing that this uncomfortable, often ugly tale is such an immersive and evocative story, with a sense of horror that is never far from the surface.' - Herald Sun

'A tautly written thriller.' - The Big Issue

'It's not an easy thing to nail the voice of a child in a way that's both authentic and alluring, but O'Grady does just that from the get-go.' - Debbish