The Ruins

The most dazzling summer casts the darkest shadows in Phoebe Wynne's thrilling gothic novel, The Ruins.

Welcome to the Château des Sètes, a jewel of the Côte d’Azur, where long summer days bring ease, glamour, and decadence to the holidaymakers who can afford it.

August 1985: Ruby Ashby adores her parents’ house in France, but this August, everything feels different. Unexpected guests have descended upon the château—friends of her parents, and their daughters—and they are keen to enjoy the hot, extravagant summer holiday to its fullest potential. But despite languid days spent poolside and long nights spent drinking, a simmering tension grows between the adults, and the sanctuary that Ruby once cherished soon starts to feel like a gilded cage.

Over two decades later, the Château des Sètes is for sale, its days of splendor and luxury long gone, leaving behind a terrible history and an ugly legacy. A young widow has returned to France, wanting to purchase the estate despite her memories of what transpired that fateful summer. But there is another person who is equally haunted by the château, and who also seeks to reclaim it. Who will set the house and its ghosts free—and who will become yet another of its victims?

With riveting psychological complexity, The Ruins captures the tangled legacy of abuse, the glittering allure of the Mediterranean, and the dark shadows that wait beneath the surface of both.