THE PITCH-BLACK REDISCOVERED CLASSIC OF 2024 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 Industry Reviews
Blackwood's works delve deeply into complicated, ugly relationships between women, something that is especially fascinating when the author herself was defined throughout her lifetime by her marriages to high-profile men. Persistently, Caroline Blackwood is hailed through the ages as the ultimate muse-which is a disgrace. She should be hailed as one of the greatest, darkest writers who ever lived
Vibrates with a frenzied, manic menace
A devastating investigation of neurosis, hysteria and cruelty - Observer
The Fate of Mary Rose I could see becoming a sensation if it were republished . . . Caroline's eye for the cruelty and strangeness of human nature is ingenious
This chillingly profound story drips with classy darkness. It perfectly evokes a loveless marriage and turbulent affair at the turn of the 1980s. A relationship drama, a doomed character study, and a one-way descent into the abyss via obsession, abduction and murder, this is a haunting cautionary tale for these true-crime obsessed times.
Caroline Blackwood sits firmly alongside the greats like Shirley Jackson and Patricia Highsmith. Her writing is smart, economical and as dark as night. She takes you deep into the foulest reaches of the human condition and leaves you breathless. The Fate of Mary Rose is a triumph of misdirection and self delusion, reminding us that female fear is a story that has run through the ages, and that the inability to be heard or believed as a woman is enough to send you mad
