Author:Carol Topolski
Shortlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction, Monster Love by Carol Topolski is a dark and deathly literary thriller.
'I've kicked myself that I didn't do anything about it then. I've often thought, what if I had? Would she be alive now?' Charlotte, neighbour
'I wonder at how gullible I was . . . because when I asked them if I could see Samantha, just for the record, she said she was playing at the rec with her friends and I just went Oh, OK' Kaye, social worker
'You see it all the time in videos and that, but until you're in the room with them you don't really know what it means' Sharon, juror
No one in the neighbourhood has seen the Gutteridges' little girl Samantha for months. But Brendan and Sherilyn look happier that ever, so nothing is wrong. Is it?
For the Gutteridges, Samantha was just a thing that threatened to worm its way into their perfect love. For everyone else, her story is the stuff of tabloid headlines. But this time it's not in a newspaper, it's happening right next door . . .
'Haunting . . . will have you hooked from the very beginning. If you liked We Need to Talk About Kevin you'll love this' Harper's Bazaar
'A chilling love story with a twist as compelling as it is disturbing' Elle
Carol Topolski is a psychoanalytic psychotherapist. Her many previous roles include working on the Woodstock festival, in advertising, and as a prison teacher, nursery-school director, director of a rape crisis centre and refuge for battered women, probation officer and film censor. She lives in London and is married with two daughters and two grandchildren. Monster Love was shortlisted for the 2008 Orange Prize for Fiction. Her second novel, Do No Harm, is available in Penguin.
A chilling love story with a twist as compelling as it is disturbing
—— ElleHaunting...will have you hooked from the very beginning. If you liked We Need to Talk About Kevin you'll love this
—— Harper's BazaarGripping, startling, striking, affecting
—— Independent on SundayA chilling, darkly compelling portrait of an unimaginable crime
—— PsychologiesThe pace is unrelenting, the twists fun...and the characters are instantly engaging
—— ZooAction-packed and authentic in every detail, it gives us a hero who's at least as scary as the villains. Andy McNab is the real deal and a rare commodity - a hard guy who knows how to write
—— JOHN CASEWith breathless speed, Unger is off on an action-packed journey of treachery and intrigue-and sex and romance. . . . Deep as well as clever, and Unger plays it out thrillingly
—— Publishers Weekly (starred review)Unger effectively builds suspicions. . . . Cleverly handled suspense
—— Kirkus ReviewsHer engaging narrative wins us over
—— Entertainment WeeklyThis mystery's surprising twists will make your jaw drop
—— CosmopolitanPerfect pitch, characters we can recognize as versions of ourselves, a plot in which a vague sense of suspense almost instantly appears and then grows with the speed of a waterslide... lip-smacking good
—— Chicago TribuneLisa Unger comes on strong... A tightly written thriller... Beautiful Lies maintains a high adrenaline level throughout as Jones draws ever closer to learning the dark secrets of her childhood and to discovering who is behind a scheme that changed her life. The book's characters are fully formed, and the action is depicted with satisfying breathlessness
—— San Francisco ChronicleReacher fans will love it - it's all storming compounds, breaking hearts and not bothering to take names, taking justice into his own hands and to hell with the wos'name... a solid inter-Bond-film substitute
—— Maxim