Alys, Always: A superbly disquieting psychological thriller - Harriet Lane (Paperback) 06-12-2012 Short-listed for Writers' Guild Book Awards 2012 (UK). Long-listed for Authors Club Best First Novel 2012 (UK).
'A marvellous novel. I absolutely adored it ... So subtle, funny, tender and so miraculously observed ... Utterly brilliant' Jilly Cooper 'Amazing . . . chillingly brilliant' RED 'A superbly disquieting psychological thriller ... Mordantly funny, yet chilling, this tale of an ordinary woman inveigling her way into a position of power is compulsive reading' SPECTATOR They have everything she wants... Frances is a thirty-something lowly sub-editor, but her routine, colourless existence is disrupted one winter evening when she happens upon the aftermath of a car crash and hears the last words of the driver, Alys Kyte. When Alys's family makes contact in an attempt to find closure, Frances is given a tantalising glimpse of a very different world: one of privilege and possibility. The relationships she builds with the Kytes will have an impact on her own life, both professionally and personally, as Frances dares to wonder whether she might now become a player in her own right ... 'A suspensful portrait of the outsider and a satisfyingly bitchy send-up of literary London' GUARDIAN 'Frances is a fascinating creation: determined, deceitful, intriguingly complex and believably drawn ... This deeply unsettling but eminently readable story is one that will linger in the memory' OBSERVER 'Lane's take on contemporary class is so sharply observed that it becomes almost satirical: the perennial theme of social climbing gets a superb new treatment in her highly entertaining, slightly chilling tale of a cuckoo in the nest' SUNDAY TIMES 'Superbly, even poetically written with an almost feverish hyper-realism, this All About Eve for our times misses no telling detail of the difference between the entitled and unentitled classes... A brilliant idea, brilliantly realised. I loved it, I loved it. I've run out of superlatives and all that remains to say is that I wish I was you; I wish I hadn't read it and had that pleasure to come' Wendy Holden DAILY MAIL