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  • Published: 2 December 2025
  • ISBN: 9781529955637
  • Imprint: Vintage Classics
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 496
  • RRP: $22.99

Her Fearful Symmetry





The Vintage Classics WEIRD GIRLS series ventures into the depraved, delectable depths of women’s weird fiction with nine novels by nine pioneering women.

Vintage Classics WEIRD GIRLS: Dive into the depraved, delectable depths of women’s weird fiction.

When Elspeth Noblin dies she leaves her beautiful flat overlooking Highgate Cemetery to her twin nieces, Julia and Valentina Poole, on the condition that their mother is never allowed to cross the threshold. But until the solicitor's letter falls through the door of their suburban American home, either Julia nor Valentina knew their aunt existed.

The twins hope that in London their own, separate, lives can finally begin but they have no idea that they've been summoned into a tangle of fraying lives, from the obsessive-compulsive crossword setter who lives above them to their aunt's mysterious and elusive lover who lives below them and works in the cemetery itself.

As the twins unravel the secrets of their aunt, who doesn't seem quite ready to leave her flat, even after death, Niffenegger weaves together a delicious and deadly ghost story about love, loss and identity.

'A ghostly love story and a lovely ghost story' - Tatler

The Vintage Classics WEIRD GIRLS series ventures into the dark heart of the uncanny with disturbing, and disturbed, protagonists who dare to defy the norm. Bold, disruptive, chilling and enchanting, these tales of the weird are strange enough to get lost in.

  • Published: 2 December 2025
  • ISBN: 9781529955637
  • Imprint: Vintage Classics
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 496
  • RRP: $22.99

About the author

Audrey Niffenegger

Audrey Niffenegger is a visual artist and writer who lives mostly in Chicago and occasionally in London. She has published six books, including the novels The Time Traveler's Wife and Her Fearful Symmetry. She helped to found the Columbia College Chicago Center for Book and Paper Arts. Her art has been exhibited by Printworks Gallery in Chicago since 1986. She is a Professor in the Fiction Department of Columbia College. Her recent projects include a ballet, Raven Girl, in collaboration with Wayne McGregor for the Royal Opera House Ballet.

Also by Audrey Niffenegger

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Praise for Her Fearful Symmetry

Niffenegger rarely reverts to stereotypes when creating her characters...they are always interesting... Niffenegger's writing...becomes beautifully simple and poignant...an emotional depth rarely found in ghost stories

Shirley Whiteside, Sunday Herald

[Niffenegger] has a knack for taking the romantic into the realm of creepiness, and she constructs a taut mystery around the secret to be found in Elspeth's diaries...It's no small achievement that the revelations are both organic and completely unexpected

The New Yorker

Delicious and deadly

Yorkshire Evening Post

A powerful and beautiful exploration of the relationships between the living and the dead... Niffenegger's writing has lost none of its emotional power

Psychologies

The depiction of Highgate Cemetery and its inhabitants is haunting...and meticulously researched

The List

A ghostly love story and a lovely ghost story

Tatler

The novel's representation of London rings completely true... The universe of Her Fearful Symmetry is solid and familiar...

John O'Connell, The Times

It's been worth the wait... Niffenegger's books are fabulously left field, striking an unlikely balance between romance and fantasy. A brilliantly beautiful book

Glamour

Chillingly good

Eithne Farry, Marie Claire

A one-off pleasure

Fanny Blake, Woman & Home

There's no mistaking Niffenegger's originality or her own commitment to her imagined world. She's a real rarity: at once a good writer and a genuine obsessive

David Sexton, Evening Standard

Many readers will adore this sort of plot

Lucy Atkins, Sunday Times

Dark and delicious

Tom Adair, Scotsman

Accomplished and considered

Stephanie Merritt, Observer

Delicious prose...she lays out her story in delectable, textual pictures...a powerful, beautifully written ghost story

Mslexia

There may be ghosts, but it's the human stories that glitter

Elle

A multi-layered, absorbingly nuanced love story... Beautifully constructed and unfurling with exquisite tragedy, Niffenegger proves The Time Traveler's Wife was not a one-off

Easy Living

Niffenegger's story is written with a lightness of touch and with a great eye for the oddities of human behaviour

Lorna Bradbury, Daily Telegraph

a nicely atmospheric book

Catherine Taylor, Sunday Telegraph

A ghost story which is as much about the living as it is the dead

Charlotte Vowden, Express

Niffenegger's quirky characters and her depiction of tourist-fantasy London - with its Tube rides, shopping trips in Knightsbridge and cucumber sandwiches for tea - it's charming and inventive

Laura Silverman, Daily Mail

There's enough off-beat characterisation to keep Niffeneger safely on the bestsellers list

Holly Kyte, Telegraph Seven Magazine

What is really satisfying about this novel, like The Time Traveler's Wife, is its depiction of relationships: the process of grief, the transforming power of love

Daily Telegraph

An original, outrageous, and thoroughly enjoyable ghost story

Independent

A rich, involving novel

The Times

A quirky delight

Woman & Home

Stop Press. This is it. A hot contender for Book of the Year

Red Magazine

Reminiscent of the expert plotting of The Time Traveler's Wife... Those who favour tales of ghosts, strange twins and dark love affairs will find that this is their book

Boston Globe

Her Fearful Symmetry glows all over with an addictive, crowd-pleasing charm... A witty ghost story

San Francisco Chronicle
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