A chilling novel from the bestselling author of Room.

'Impossible to put down' Stephen King

Lib Wright, a young English nurse, arrives in an impoverished Irish village on a strange mission. Eleven-year-old Anna O'Donnell is said to have eaten nothing for months but appears to be thriving miraculously. Lib's job is simple: to watch the girl and uncover the truth.
An educated sceptic, Lib expects to expose the fast as a hoax right away. But as she gets to know the girl she becomes more and more unsure. Is Anna a fraud, or a 'living wonder'? Or is something more sinister unfolding right before Lib's eyes? Written with all the propulsive tension that transported readers of Room, The Wonder asks what lengths we would go to for the love of a child.
'A superb stylist - her prose is stirring and tender, her period setting alive' Sunday Times
'A thrilling domestic psychodrama that draws its power from quotidian detail as well as gothic horror' Guardian

Fans of Emma Donoghue's first novel Room will not be disappointed with The Wonder . . . a tale of claustrophobic suspense and the intense relationship between a woman and a child . . . Donoghue's masterful way with words and imagery has the reader sharing Lib's scepticism and disdain for Anna and her family's naïve religious fervour. And it's Donoghue's skill in building The Wonder up into an increasingly tense thriller - is Anna a fake or a saint and will she live or die? - until a heart-thumping, palm-sweating dramatic denouement.