Standalone Novels
| Title | Published | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|
| Madam | 2021 | Buy |
| The Ruins | 2022 | Buy |
Phoebe Wynne came to fiction after a career teaching classics, and both of her novels carry that background into their settings and themes. Madam (2021), her debut, is set at Caldonbrae Hall, an elite and isolated girls’ boarding school on the Scottish coast. A new teacher arrives to discover that the institution’s traditions run darker than she expected. The novel combines Gothic atmosphere with questions about how institutions control women.
The Ruins (2022), her second novel, shifts to the South of France, where a woman returns to a decaying villa connected to her family’s past. Classical mythology surfaces throughout the story, with references to ancient narratives running parallel to the modern plot. Both books share an interest in how the past traps people, whether through institutional power or family legacy. Wynne’s training in the ancient world gives her fiction a foundation that sets it apart from more conventional literary suspense.