Edith Holler

A Novel

By: Edward Carey

Narrated by: Jayne Entwistle

The witty and entrancing story of a young woman trapped in a ramshackle English playhouse—and the mysterious figure who threatens the theater's very survival

The year is 1901. England’s beloved queen has died, and her aging son has finally taken the throne. In the eastern city of Norwich, bright and inquisitive young Edith Holler spends her days among the boisterous denizens of the Holler Theatre, warned by her domineering father that the playhouse will literally tumble down if she should ever leave its confines. Fascinated by tales of the city she knows only from afar, she decides to write a play of her own: a stage adaptation of the legend of Mawther Meg, a monstrous figure said to have used the blood of countless children to make the local delicacy known as Beetle Spread. But when her father suddenly announces his engagement to a peculiar, imposing woman named Margaret Unthank, heir to the actual Beetle Spread fortune, Edith scrambles to protect her father, the theatre, and her play—the one thing that’s truly hers—from the newcomer’s sinister designs.

Teeming with unforgettable characters, Edith Holler is a surprisingly modern fable of one young woman’s struggle to escape her family’s control—and to reveal inconvenient truths about the way children are used.

A Perfect Modern-Day Grimm Fairytale!

A perfect tale! A wonderful dark fairytale! The best way I can describe it is as if a Grimm's Fairytale and director Quinten Tarantino collaborated to make a perfect little nightmare of a tale. Narrated by the extremely talented Jayne Entwistle. She makes all the stories that she narrates come to life. This was a very well thought out and well written story, a story that takes you into the dark world of a cursed child's imagination and life, magically dark! If you have a great knowledge theatre and of the behind-the-scenes world of theatre, you will thoroughly enjoy this story even more!

Relentlessly grim but uniquely original.

Loved his last book and was excited about this one. Carey’s voice and the world he creates are fantastic. However, I struggled to finish this one because the story became stuck on relentless grimness and I was confused if Edith was a ghost or real? Could have benefited from editing the last 3 hours down . It was written during the pandemic and the feeling of being ‘stuck in’ with no end in sight. I

Wild

At times hard to follow but comes together at points. Glad the good guys win in the end. I will stick with murder love and world war 2.