"In her witty and charming style, Lutz offers a genre-busting work of fiction that will satisfy readers looking for a seriously engaging read. The story itself is disturbingly plausible, and the humanly flawed characters make choices, good and bad, based on their backgrounds, all blending smoothly into a darkly comedic mystery. . . . This novel keeps readers on the edge of their seats while opening a conversation about public shaming, economic privilege, gender inequity, and revenge versus justice."
--Booklist (starred review)
"It's the era of #MeToo, and literature is beginning to reflect that in a big way. In Lisa Lutz's
The Swallows, a prep school teacher ignites a gender war when she begins the question the institution's overpowering 'boys will be boys' mentality. She soon learns that starting a revolution and threatening the status quo comes with steep consequences."
--Bustle "A new teacher at a ritzy New England prep school ignites a fierce battle between the male and female students that ends with revenge, threats, and a fatality. So, just another average day in high school . . . just kidding."
--PopSugar "The latest campus novel teetering between thriller and satire, Lutz's book throws readers into the drama of a New England prep school, where one inscrutable new teacher brings about ideas that ignite a deadly gender-war."
--Entertainment Weekly "Liza Lutz is a treasure. Her Spellman Files series manages to be both charming and shrewd, and
The Swallows promises to follow suit--it looks witty and caustic, winsome and clever. It's also, and this is a classic Lutz move, a fresh, unique spin on a genre that already has been reworked a million times. . . . Lutz, searing as ever . . . illuminate[s] how various institutions excuse the oppression or silencing of women and girls."
--CrimeReads "Wes Anderson meets Muriel Spark in this delicius and vicious bayyle of the sexes set within a private school. Wickedly fun and wildly subversive but packing an emotional punch,
The Swallows is as powerful as it is timely."
--Nationally bestselling author Megan Abbott "Sharpen your axes, ladies, and get ready for this fierce, fun, unsparing novel of female rage, power, and friendship."
--Camille Perri, author of The Assistants and When Katie Met Cassidy "I devoured
The Swallows. You'll laugh out loud even as you anxiously flip the pages."
--New York Times bestselling author Tess Gerritsen "[Lutz] takes no prisoners. . . . She builds her plot cannily and walks a neat line between satire and realism [in a] withering portrayal of how the #MeToo movement plays out in this rarefied setting."
--Publishers Weekly "Lutz draws on the droll humor and idiosyncratic characterizations that make her Spellman novels so appealing. . . . An offbeat, darkly witty pre-#MeToo revenge tale. The patriarchy doesn't stand a chance."
--Kirkus Reviews "With a memorable cast of characters and more than a few secrets, Lutz's latest is a turbocharged tale for our times."
--Newsweek