The Stepdaughter

<p><b>Discover Caroline Blackwood's darkly brilliant debut - a perfect rediscovered classic for fans of Shirley Jackson and Ottessa Moshfegh</b><br><br><b>'A bracingly nasty book . . . Splendid, dark, often very funny' MEGAN NOLAN, <i>Telegraph</i></b><br><br>A lavish Upper West Side apartment is the site of a familial cold war about to enter a phase of dangerous escalation.<br><br>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. <br><br>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.<br><br>'<b>Contained and ferocious' <i>TLS</i></b><br><br><b>'Punchy . . . a clever and perfectly formed novel' <i>The Times</i></b><br><br><b>'One of the greatest, darkest writers who ever lived' VIRGINIA FEITO</b><br><br><b>'Witty, observant, clever' <i>Guardian</i></b><br><b> <i><br>'</i>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'</b> <b><i>LA REVIEW OF BOOKS</i></b><br><b><br>'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'<i> NEW YORKER</i></b><br><b><br>'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 </b></p>