Who is Maud Dixon?
a wickedly twisty thriller with a character you'll never forget
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3.5 • 18 Ratings
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- $12.99
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
'Clever, cunning, and diabolical in the best possible way. Anyone longing for a good old-fashioned thrill need look no further' Ann Patchett
Celebrated, bestselling, elusive...who is Maud Dixon?
Florence Darrow wants to be a writer. Correction: Florence Darrow IS going to be a writer. Fired from her first job in publishing, she jumps at the chance to be assistant to the celebrated Maud Dixon, the anonymous bestselling novelist. The arrangement comes with conditions - high secrecy, living in an isolated house in the countryside. Before long, the two of them are on a research trip to Morocco, to inspire the much-promised second novel. Beach walks, red sunsets and long, whisky-filled evening discussions...win-win, surely? Until Florence wakes up in a hospital, having narrowly survived a car crash.
How did it happen - and where is Maud Dixon, who was in the car with her? Florence feels she may have been played, but wait, if Maud is no longer around, maybe Florence can make her mark as a writer after all...
'Stylish, sharp, with wicked hairpin turns...pure fun' Maria Semple
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Deception and self-delusion intermingle in a debut psychological thriller that’s drawn praise from James Patterson and Ann Patchett. When aspiring writer Florence Darrow takes a job as an assistant to a reclusive author known as Maud Dixon, whose first and only novel sold more than three million copies, Florence spies a mad path to her own fame and literary success. Alexandra Andrews confidently delivers a bold plot with brilliant clarity and style as the two women slowly get under each other’s skin. The tension lies within the past mysteries that lurk at the edges of the present, and the dysfunction of Florence’s unchecked ambitions. A skilfully nuanced examination of power and authorship, Who is Maud Dixon? is an enthralling and thought-provoking mystery that’s easy to relish.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
When aspiring novelist Florence Darrow, the protagonist of Andrews's devilishly plotted debut, gets fired from her dogsbody job at a Manhattan publishing house, she faces the prospect that she might not be destined for greatness after all. Then fate intervenes an offer to become the live-in writing assistant to a literary supernova who uses the pseudonym Maud Dixon. Initially, all goes swimmingly as Florence's charismatic new boss real name Helen Wilcox, and at 32 only a few years her senior seems keen on mentoring Florence. But when the pair embark on a research trip to Morocco, things become considerably more complicated. Especially after Florence wakes up in the hospital following a car crash to find no trace of Helen, but instead a gendarme insistent that she is in fact Helen, an understandable error given the name on the car rental paperwork as well as Helen's soggy ID. And with that the game truly is afoot as Florence scrambles to figure out the nature of what will prove to be Helen's fiendish master plot, barreling full-speed towards a breathtaking series of Highsmith-style twists and a stunning conclusion. This darkly comic take on contemporary publishing may well leave readers asking, "Who is Alexandra Andrews?"
