Night Swimming

Tell me about your dreams

about your sleep

about your nightmares.

Tell me everything,

he says as he leans

towards me,

his eyes resting

on my thighs.

January Clare Colson is longing for sleep, for release from the wakefulness that is consuming her, haunted by the tragic drowning of her best friend years ago when they were rebellious teens. She’s a mess of pills and broken promises, swimming in desperation.

Then he walks back into her life, changed but the same, and the events of long ago take a new grip on her. She needs to know what happened. She needs to know him. To call him to account.

But her strategy is dangerous, obsessive, warped by insomnia and the intense power of thwarted desire.

January Clare Colson is standing on the brink of destruction.

Sharon Kernot’s debut verse novel for adults is a riveting psychological thriller that catapults the reader into the mind of a deeply tormented and vulnerable protagonist, blurring the boundaries between victim and aggressor with shocking effect.

Sharon Kernot is the author of three novels including two acclaimed YA verse novels, The Art of Taxidermy and Birdy. Her poems and short stories have been published widely in Australia and internationally. Sharon lives in Mount Barker, South Australia.