With pitch-pure dialogue, and a plot that weaves in and around the theatre until the edges of reality blur, Lisa Harding presents us with a psychologically gripping story about personal manipulation and the imbalance of power in intimate relationships. A powerful performance -- JANE URQUHART
Set against the backdrop of a beautifully reimagined Dublin of the Nineties, The Wildelings is a campus novel with a twist; a blisteringly real story of control and vulnerability, desire and ambition. A propulsive read -- ROISIN O'DONNELL
Harding's style of writing is direct and intense, giving her novel a raw and emotional tone. It's a compelling read, one which will be hard to forget * IRISH EXAMINER *
A deliciously dark psychological mystery * IRISH TIMES, The best books for summer 2025 *
The Wildelings is a shiver-inducing delight. I found myself reading when I should have been doing a million other things, unable to tear myself away from these bewitching characters, Harding's beautiful prose, and the prickly suspicion that a dark surprise was waiting for me on every page -- LAUREN GRODSTEIN
A spectacular tour de force * THE GLOSS, The best books to read this summer *
Propulsive, with echoes of Donna Tartt's The Secret History ... This is dark academia at its most gripping * ECONOMIST, The best novels published in the second quarter of 2025 *
The Wildelings is a darkly lyrical and compelling novel about power, obsession, and the fragility of intimacy. A thrilling excavation of the blurred lines between friendship and the more dangerous shadows of youth. Harding crafts a masterful study of vulnerability, control, and the uneasy art of self-reinvention. -- ELAINE FEENEY
Dark, blistering and full of theatrics, The Wildelings is an electric exploration of control, guilt, and one young woman's fight to free herself. I was hooked from the very start -- RACHEL JOYCE
Fans of dark academia or Donna Tartt's The Secret History, this one's for you * HARPER'S BAZAAR, The 25 Best Books Coming Out This Spring *
Full of brooding menace ... A dark and riveting novel * SUNDAY INDEPENDENT *
A vicious, sardonic, cruel book...very dramatic ... I lapped it up -- RYAN TUBRIDY
Harding gives Jessica a self-excoriating, incisive, bitter, and evocative first-person voice. The Wildelings' inexorable plot is like the proverbial train wreck: shocking, electric, impossible to turn from. Its psychological tumult verges on horror. With this atmospheric roller coaster of a novel, Harding offers pulsing intensity, gut-wrenching emotional upheaval, and high drama in every sense * SHELF AWARENESS *
A story of obsession, control and guilt, set in 1990s Dublin ... Perfect for fans of dark academia and Donna Tartt's The Secret History * IRISH TIMES *
The Wildelings arrives to fill the Secret History-shaped hole in your lives ... Gothic and gloriously entertaining -- Alex Preston * OBSERVER, Fiction to look out for in 2025 *
A searing exploration into our deepest desires and insecurities. I adored it -- HEATHER DARWENT, author of the Sunday Times-bestselling The Things We Do to Our Friends
I was gripped by this dark and thrilling fable - Harding is the new Donna Tartt -- DOMINIC WEST
Lisa Harding's The Wildelings, in the tradition of dark academia, shocks with the cruelties of belonging, the seductive power wielded in friendships, the impulse to control and subjugate. Impeccably paced, dark and disturbingly honest, The Wildelings reveals campus life as theatre of cruelty; but the real stagecraft lies in Harding's ability to excavate the still beating heart of a shared past and bonds beneath those brutalities. Riveting, addictive and, ultimately, beautifully human -- UNA MANNION, author of Tell Me What I Am
Obsession, possessiveness, coercion, malice, spite, insecurity, frailty, vulnerability; lu