Meet Mad Mabel.
Elsie Mabel Fitzpatrick is eighty-one years old. She's lived on her idyllic street, Kenny Lane, for sixty years--longer than anyone else. Aside from being a curmudgeon who minds everyone else's business, few would suspect that Elsie has a past that she has worked exceedingly hard at concealing. Because when it comes to murder, no one ever suspects little girls or old ladies. And Elsie Mabel Fitzpatrick, once a little girl and now an old lady, has a strange history of people in her life coming to a foul end.
When a new little girl (talkative, curious, nosy) moves into the neighborhood and stops at nothing to befriend Elsie, her carefully-constructed life threatens to come crashing down as the secrets in Elsie's past start coming to light. Who was "Mad Mabel" fifty years ago? Who is Elsie Fitzpatrick today? And if the past has a habit of repeating itself, who has the most to lose?
Told with Sally Hepworth's twists, humor, charm, and heart, MAD MABEL is novel that weaves past and present together--through the power of justice and redemption, and all the way to its stunning conclusion.
Elsie has spent more than sixty years living a quiet, orderly life on Kenny Lane. Now eighty-one, she’s known as the neighborhood curmudgeon - sharp-tongued, observant, and more than a little nosy. But beneath that prickly exterior is a past she’s kept carefully hidden. When young Persephone, a lonely and determined little girl, decides that Elsie will be her new best friend, an unlikely bond begins to form. In many ways, they are exactly what the other needs. Could a better match have been made?
Sally Hepworth’s latest novel unfolds across dual timelines, moving effortlessly between present-day Elsie and her fifteen-year-old self, with even brief glimpses into her earliest childhood. Through these shifts, readers learn that Elsie was once Mabel - a girl burdened with the cruel nickname “Mad Mabel.” The story behind that name, and the transformation from Mabel to Elsie, is both heartbreaking and compelling, gradually revealing the truth behind the walls she has built over a lifetime.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Elsie is a wonderfully complex character - difficult at times, but deeply endearing. I loved her just as much as Mabel as I did as the older Elsie. Persephone’s curiosity and vulnerability make her impossible not to care about; she’s the kind of character you want to reach through the pages and hug. While the novel explores some heavy themes, it does so with a light touch, weaving in warmth and humor in a way that feels natural and earned. The ending is especially well done - poignant without being overdone - and it’s one that lingers long after the final page.
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Sally Hepworth is the bestselling author of The Secrets of Midwives (2015), The Things We Keep (2016) and The Mother's Promise (2017), and The Family Next Door (Feb 2018). Sally's books have been labelled “enchanting” by The Herald Sun, “smart and engaging” by Publisher’s Weekly, and New York Times bestselling authors Liane Moriarty and Emily Giffin have praised Sally’s novels as “women’s fiction at its finest” and “totally absorbing”.
Sally's novels are available worldwide in English and have been translated into 15 languages.
Sally lives in Melbourne, Australia with her husband and three children.
