BRING THE HOUSE DOWN by Charlotte Runcie - Spotlight

 

In this sharply funny, feminist tinderbox, a theater critic at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe writes a vicious one-star review of a struggling actress with whom he has a one-night stand.

Alex Lyons always has his mind made up by the time the curtain comes down at a performance—the show either deserves a five-star rave or a one-star pan. Anything in between is meaningless. On the opening night of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, he doesn’t deliberate over the rating for Hayley Sinclair’s show, nor does he hesitate when the opportunity presents itself to have a one-night stand with the struggling actress.

Unaware that she’s gone home with the theater critic who’s just written a career-ending review of her, Hayley wakes up at his apartment to see his scathing one-star critique in print on the kitchen table, and she’s not sure which humiliation offends her the most. So she revamps her show into a viral sensation critiquing Alex Lyons himself—entitled son of a famous actress, serial philanderer, and by all accounts a terrible man. Yet Alex remains unapologetic. As his reputation goes up in flames, he insists on telling his unvarnished version of events to his colleague, Sophie. Through her eyes, we see that the deeper she gets pulled into his downfall, the more conflicted she becomes. After all, there are always two sides to every story.

A brilliant Trojan horse of a book about art, power, misogyny, and female rage, Bring the House Down is a searing, insightful, and often hilarious debut that captures the blurred line between reality and performance.

Charlotte Runcie writes about the stories we tell and the ones we try not to.

Her debut novel, Bring the House Down, is a ‘tender, furious and very, very funny’ (Marie Claire) story of modern desire, betrayal and self-deception set in the world of theatre and criticism. It’s a 2025 novel of the summer according to The New York Times, Marie Claire, The Times (London), The Independent, Lit Hub, The Bookseller and Glamour. Her earlier book, Salt on Your Tongue, is a lyrical work of nonfiction about women, water and the myths we carry and retell. It was BBC Radio 4’s Book of the Week.

Charlotte has spent over a decade writing on books, theatre and culture for newspapers and magazines including The Telegraph, The Guardian and The Times. She’s also written original fiction for BBC Radio 4, and co-hosts In Haste, a podcast about books, writing and real life.

She studied English at Cambridge University and is now working on a PhD in medieval literature at Bristol, researching how medieval narratives of fear and enchantment echo in the modern novel.

Charlotte was once a poet (she’s a former Foyle Young Poet of the Year), and her background in poetry still shapes her style and voice. She lives in Wales and is writing a second novel.