by Alison Moore
First published 2016
Bonnie Falls has just turned thirty and moved into her first apartment after abandoning her university studies. Her new landlady, Sylvia Slythe, shows unusual interest in Bonnie's creative writing, particularly a story about a woman who relocates to a coastal town and falls under mysterious influences. Sylvia pushes Bonnie to complete this unfinished tale. When summer arrives, Sylvia proposes they vacation together at the seaside since neither has holiday companions. Bonnie finds herself drawn into her landlady's plans, but the trip begins to mirror the unsettling story she's been writing. The boundaries between Bonnie's fiction and reality start to blur as Sylvia's influence grows stronger. Moore explores how creative work can become entangled with lived experience, and how relationships built on dependency can shift in unexpected directions.
Genres: fiction, literary-fiction, mystery, contemporary
Vibes: atmospheric, intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: unreliable-narrator
Setting: Seaside
Period: Summer
300 pages · Kindle Edition · Salt Publishing Limited