‘A bracingly nasty book . . . Splendid, dark, often very funny’ MEGAN NOLAN, Telegraph

A lavish Upper West Side apartment is the site of a familial cold war about to enter a phase of dangerous escalation.

J is a lonely woman without the luxury of being alone. Her husband has fled to Paris with his latest flame, leaving J with not only their own four-year-old daughter, Sally Ann, but the sulky, cake-mix addicted, thirteen-year-old Renata, a leftover from his previous marriage.

Writing letters in her head to imaginary friends, J delights in dwelling on the hapless Renata, who ‘invites a kind of cruelty’. This is an invitation J fully intends to take up – and like so many stepmothers before her, she will find that wickedness, once indulged, is a difficult habit to kick. A mordant black splinter of a book, Caroline Blackwood’s first novel is a testament to her razor-sharp mastery – and mockery – of the darkest depths of human feeling.

‘Contained and ferocious’ TLS

‘One of the greatest, darkest writers who ever lived’ VIRGINIA FEITO

‘Witty, observant, clever’ Guardian

‘The perfect book for people who find Joan Didion too even-keeled, Renata Adler too fair-minded . . . In its own way, it’s a perfect novel . . . It deserves to be a cheeky summer hit’ LA REVIEW OF BOOKS

‘Blackwood was in fact a writer of rare distinction, the author of wit-drenched books about the wages of class, women’s inhumanity to women, bitchiness, greed, abjection, family, monsters’ NEW YORKER

‘Caroline Blackwood sits firmly alongside the greats like Shirley Jackson and Patricia Highsmith. Her writing is smart, economical and as dark as night’ ARAMINTA HALL

From the Booker-shortlisted author of Great Granny Webster, this twisted modern classic is perfect for fans of Shirley Jackson and Celia Dale.

‘One of the greatest, darkest writers who ever lived’ Virginia Feito
‘This chillingly profound story drips with classy darkness. . . a one-way descent into the abyss’ Janice Hallett
‘A dark masterpiece’ Camilla Grudova
‘I absolutely loved this . . . Creepy, atmospheric and dark as a village green at midnight’ Alice Slater
‘A devastating investigation of neurosis, hysteria and cruelty’ Observer
‘I read it with wide eyes and unsavoury glee’ Sunday Times
‘Caroline Blackwood sits firmly alongside the greats like Shirley Jackson and Patricia Highsmith’ Araminta Hall
‘Compulsive, cruel and brilliant’ Daily Mail
‘Gimlet-eyed and masterful’ Irish Independent

***

She was dead even before I became aware of her existence . . .

A child has been abducted from a sleepy Kent village, her face plastered across the media.

As the crime unleashes a wave of hysteria, the claustrophobic world of Rowan Anderson and his inscrutable wife begins to disintegrate. Consumed by her macabre fixation, Cressida is determined to save their sickly daughter, Mary Rose, from the same fate – and perhaps even from Rowan himself.

With caustic wit and pitch-black brilliance, Caroline Blackwood creates a skin-crawling – and utterly compulsive – story of repressed violence, female rage, and maternal obsession.

INTRODUCED BY CAMILLA GRUDOVA