Both are haunted, Becky by the ghostly form of her missing brother Conrad, her aged five memories seem to make little sense while Roy is haunted by Eric Scoones, one time friend whose memory is seriously tainted. Becky aims to demonstrate that Roy is wrong about woman, that her ambition will throw open these hallowed narrow doors wide by, shock, horror, admitting female students. She represents its future just as Roy Straitley, classics teacher of many years, is its past. Rebecca Buckfast née Price is the first woman headteacher through the ‘narrow door’ of St Oswalds, Malbry, the institution rocked by murder and scandal. She also spends too much time on Twitter plays flute and bass guitar in a band first formed when she was 16 and works from a shed in her garden at her home in Yorkshire. Her hobbies are listed in Who's Who as 'mooching, lounging, strutting, strumming, priest-baiting and quiet subversion'.

She is an honorary Fellow of St Catharine's College, Cambridge, and in 2022 was awarded an OBE by the Queen. In 2000, her 1999 novel CHOCOLAT was adapted to the screen, starring Juliette Binoche and Johnny Depp.

She has also written a DR WHO novella for the BBC, has scripted guest episodes for the game ZOMBIES, RUN!, and is currently engaged in a number of musical theatre projects as well as developing an original drama for television. Her work is extremely diverse, covering aspects of magic realism, suspense, historical fiction, mythology and fantasy. Joanne Harris is an Anglo-French author, whose books include fourteen novels, two cookbooks and many short stories. Written by an author who is skilful at keeping us guessing right up to the very last page, I recommend highly to her many fans and those that enjoy psychological thrillers.Joanne Harris is also known as Joanne M. The story unfolds as they reveal their stories to each other and the reader is drawn deep into the complex events of the past. Both Roy and Rebecca have dark memories buried in their pasts that torture them. The head teacher and female protagonist Rebecca Buckfast, nee Price is the future of the school and Roy Straitley who has been a main male character in all three books, is the traditional past. Times have moved on at St Oswald’s and the traditional narrow door has opened a smidgeon and admitted not only a female head of school but also girls as pupils. It was great to catch up once again with a character I felt I knew, Roy Straitley, his boys, colleagues and St Oswald’s School. This entire series has been an enthralling read, as Joanne Harris writes haunting psychological thrillers. The third novel in the Malbry trilogy, A Narrow Door is a sequel to Gentleman and Players (2005) and Different Class (2016).

A narrow door a novel joanne harris