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Early reviews for Other People’s Fun


‘Lane returns with a tense, sharply observed novel of class, social media and manipulation, simmering with quiet dread’ (the i paper)

‘Listen, if a former frenemy from your teenage years suddenly turns up in your life – which isn’t going spectacularly well – then can we suggest you run like hell. Unfortunately, protagonists in novels never do but, on the bright side, it means you get to read this very perceptive and addictive tale from the always-brilliant Harriet Lane’ (Stylist)

‘Funny literary suspense’ (Grazia)

‘This deliciously twisted tale is a one-sitting read steeped in tension and unease’ (Red)

Other People’s Fun is published in the UK on 30 October and in the US on 4 November

Other People’s Fun

Harriet’s third novel, Other People’s Fun, will be published in October 2025 by W&N (UK) and Little, Brown (US).

Info from W&N:

‘I look. I can’t stop looking. That’s the deal, isn’t it? We all know that’s how it works. If someone wants to be seen — and oh, how they want to be seen — then someone has to watch.’

Ruth is alone, unnoticed and at a loss: her marriage has ended, her daughter is leaving home and her job is leading nowhere. But luckily Sookie is back in her life — vivid, self-assured Sookie, who never spared the time for Ruth when they were teenagers, but who now seems to want to be friends.

What could possibly go wrong? As Ruth is caught up in Sookie’s life, she sees that everything is not as simple and Instagrammable as Sookie would have you believe.

But what has that got to do with Ruth, and what can she do about it?

Unputdownable, funny, spiky and subtle, Other People’s Fun is a novel about modern life and the lies we tell our neighbours, friends, families and selves through the hall of mirrors that is social media.

Filled with Harriet Lane’s trademark creeping unease and forensic observation, this marks the long-awaited return of the mistress of literary suspense.





Alys, Always on stage

Lucinda Coxon’s stage adaptation of Alys, Always, directed by Nicholas Hytner, opens at London’s Bridge Theatre in February 2019. The cast includes Joanne Froggatt and Robert Glenister.
More information here