Service : Workplace novel meets haunted house tale in this razor-sharp, wickedly funny debut

by Mooney, Lauren | Fiction & related items
Published 25/06/2026 by Bonnier Books Ltd (Manilla Press) in the United Kingdom
Hardback | 352 pages
234 x 153mm | 0g

'Funny, bleak, delicious, totally terrifying. I could not put it down' Ella Risbridger'An acerbically witty and haunting state of the times debut' Charlotte ParadiseDanielle MacKinnon's nearly thirty and still hasn't got her life sorted. She's broke, hates her job as PA to the blithely privileged Jeannie, and now a break-up's left her with nowhere to live. It comes as a surprise when Jeannie suggests that Danielle stay at Westerley, the sprawling Yorkshire estate where she grew up. They need someone to look after the place anyway.

Danielle enjoys the borrowed luxury at first, but the house is strange, uneasy. The sleep paralysis that started in London has followed her there. Then Jeannie arrives unannounced.

Working for Jeannie, serving her, living in her house, the razor-thin boundaries between Danielle and her boss begin to dissolve. Soon their relationship slides into one that is older, stranger and harder to name.

Something is happening at Westerley. Things where they shouldn't be. The shadow of a maid sweeping in the dawn light. But is the house really haunted? Or is Danielle?