Wildelings - Lisa Harding - Harper Collins

A girl so desperate to belong that she lets herself be remade.

Jessica and Linda have been inseparable since childhood, their friendship shaped by abandonment, survival and a shared need to belong. At Wilde, an elite university in Dublin, they arrive determined to remake themselves. Jessica, fiercely ambitious and drawn to the theatre, is used to leading. Linda, more fragile, follows. But when they meet Mark, an older philosophy student with a magnetic presence, the balance between them begins to shift.

Mark recognizes their vulnerabilities immediately and draws them into his world. Linda becomes his girlfriend, then his project, reshaped by his attention. Jessica becomes his actress, her ambition pulling her deeper into his orbit. Around them, a tight-knit group forms, but under Mark’s influence, loyalties begin to fracture.

Over the course of a single year, relationships are tested, identities shift, and tensions build. Mark feeds on what unfolds, turning it into creative material as he moves towards becoming the celebrated playwright he is destined to be. By the end of that year, under the sway of his influence, a line is crossed that leads to devastating consequences for Linda.

Years later, Jessica is still trying to understand her part in what happened. How much was she shaped, and how much did she choose? A dark, unsettling novel about friendship, ambition, manipulation and the price of being seen.