The Woman in the Wallpaper

by Lora Jones

Overview

The lives of three women dramatically collide during the French Revolution: Sofi, a wallpaper factory worker; her sister Lara, a lady’s maid; and a young aristocrat, Hortense. At the factory, the sisters notice something eerie about the intricately illustrated wallpaper: the same mysterious woman appears again and again. But what does it portend?

After the death of their beloved father, sisters Sofi and Lara are forced to leave their family home in Marseilles and move to a small village on the outskirts of Paris, where they have been offered work at a factory renowned for its intricately illustrated wallpaper known as Toile de Jouy. But when Sofi and Lara arrive at the factory, owned by a wealthy businessman named Wilhelm Oberst, they notice something unsettling about the wallpaper’s pattern. At the heart of its seemingly idyllic vignettes, the same woman appears again and again: Madame Justine, Oberst’s former wife—who, they discover, met an untimely and mysterious death years before, and who bears more than a passing resemblance to Lara. At the factory, Lara attracts the attention of the factory owner’s son, Josef. But there is something uncannily familiar about their interactions, and Lara soon realizes that her life is mirroring the scenes illustrated on the wallpaper that lines her bedchamber. As the strange occurrences surrounding the wallpaper become ever more unnerving, Lara is gripped by paranoia. Is history is repeating itself and, if so, will she share the same tragic fate as the woman in the wallpaper?


 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781454956006
Publisher:	Union Square & Co.
Publication date:	02/04/2025
Pages:	448
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

After studying English Literature at the University of Durham, Lora Jones began her career in the TV industry, reading scripts and writing for ITV, the BBC, Channel 4, and others. Lora lives in the rugged, myth-steeped hills of North Wales. The Woman in the Wallpaper is her first novel. She lives in the United Kingdom.

Read an Excerpt

Excerpt
 
Prologue
 
Paris, 18th October 1793
She sees the scene open up before her as the tumbril rounds the corner. For a moment she imagines the view ahead could be printed too, observes the way in which the high buildings lining the square darken the edges of her vision, creating a vignette, a pattern. She blinks hard.
            She sees patterns in everything now, and momentarily wonders if this scene is even real at all or simply another deception. She forces herself to focus very hard upon it, waiting for it to vanish or change, to morph into something else entirely. But it does not.
            The capital’s largest square—the Place de la Révolution—is thronging with crowds so dense it has swelled to bursting point, overflowing into the surrounding rues as far as the river’s edge. Her gaze travels beyond the mere size of the crowds, right to the heart of their common purpose. This mass of people is all sharp edges: splinters, spikes, snarls. Many are armed. Some break the skyline with pistols, some pierce it with pikes. Others wield a cruder arsenal: sickles, knives, shanks, items they have snatched-up or quickly fashioned.
            The woman squints. At this distance the scene might almost be pastoral, the high-held weaponry nothing more than blades of meadow-grass, whipped and jostled by the wind. But they have gathered, she knows, to watch death come. Their hunger for it charges the air like a tropical storm.
            There, beyond them all, at the head of the square and high on the scaffold, there she sees it. Taller than two men and looming darkly in its own shadow. The Half-Moon, the Fanlight, the Machine. Madame Guillotine. The tocsin bell begins to toll.

Editorial Reviews

Spellbinding and decadent . . . an astounding debut.”—Susan Stokes-Chapman, author of Pandora

“We are gifted a platter of intriguing, unpredictable characters and an expertly plotted narrative that delights and amuses despite the darkly unsettling mystery.”—Joanne Burn, author of the Hemlock Cure

“Exquisite writing and a riveting plot.”—Anna Mazzola, author of the Clockwork Girl

 

From the Publisher