Precious You
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
‘Enthralling… you may be reminded of Villanelle by Lily, the possibly psychopathic antiheroine’ THE SUNDAY TIMES
‘A dark, addictive page-turner’ ALICE FEENEY
‘Supremely twisted and completely riveting’ KATIE LOWE
‘A breathtaking debut’ SAMANTHA DOWNING
She’s got your job. She wants your life…
When Katherine first meets her new intern Lily, she’s captivated. Young, beautiful and confident, Lily reminds Katherine of everything she once was – and it’s not long before she develops a dark fascination with her new colleague.
But is Lily as perfect as she seems, or does she have a sinister hidden agenda? As Katherine is drawn into an obsessive power struggle with the intern, a disturbing picture emerges of two women hiding dark secrets – and who are desperate enough to do anything to come out on top…
Breathlessly addictive and deeply unsettling, Precious You is a thriller like no other. Taut, terrifying and with shocking twists at every turn, it will keep you guessing until the very last page.
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Perfect for anyone who loved Lucy Foley’sThe Hunting Party, Harriet Tyce’s Blood Orange and Samantha Downing’s My Lovely Wife.
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‘Compulsive and sexy’ THE BOOKSELLER
‘Chilling, addictive’ WOMAN & HOME
‘Deliciously vitriolic’ STYLIST
‘Dark and totally gripping’ BELLA
‘Clever and uniquely modern’ WOMAN’S OWN
‘A brilliant and dark story’ CLOSER
‘I was genuinely terrified’ ADELE PARKS
‘Packed with toxic rivalry and explosive twists’ MY WEEKLY
‘Twisted, shocking, terrific’ JO SPAIN
‘Will keep you hooked’ WOMAN’S WEEKLY
‘Nail-biting’ HARRIET TYCE
‘Disturbing and zeitgeisty’ PHOEBE MORGAN
‘Audacious, dark and smart’ PHOEBE LOCKE
‘I’m obsessed!’ LAURIE ELIZABETH FLYNN
‘Hints of Gone Girl’ WILL DEAN
‘A brutal beauty. WOW’ MIRANDA DICKINSON
‘I couldn’t put it down’ ALEX MARWOOD
‘A brilliantly twisted tale’ LISA HALL
‘My mouth was open’ CRESSIDA MCLAUGHLIN
‘Messed up and BRILLIANT’ LIZ LOVES BOOKS
‘A powerhouse of a debut’ EMMA COOPER
About the author
Helen Monks Takhar has been working as a journalist, copyeditor and magazine editor since 1999, having graduated from Cambridge. She began her career in financial trade newspapers before writing for national newspapers including The Times, The Observer and The Daily Telegraph.
Originally from Southport, Merseyside, she lives in Stoke Newington with her husband and two young children. Precious You is her first novel.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Near the start of Monks Takhar's dark and disquieting debut, 41-year-old Katherine Ross, editor of Leadership, a trade magazine, learns she has a new intern: publisher Gemma Lunt's 24-year-old niece, Lily Lunt. Lily's youth and millennial sensibilities make the already depressed Gen Xer feel ancient and irrelevant, so she's secretly thrilled when Lily invites her out for drinks and proclaims her admiration. Shortly thereafter, Lily begins edging out Katherine at work, but Lily's already charmed Katherine's assistant and her significant other, 50-something failed screenwriter Iain, and both dismiss Katherine's burgeoning suspicions regarding Lily's actual intentions. Consequently, by the time Katherine realizes that Lily has designs on both her job and her partner, ruin is inexorable. Monks Takhar intersperses Katherine's bitter and broken first-person narrative, which is directed at Lily, with entries from Lily's diary detailing her motives and machinations. Though psychotic "snowflake" Lily rings true, curmudgeonly Katherine reads a decade older than her stated age, which undercuts the plot. Still, Monks Takhar delivers an excruciatingly tense slow burn that's rife with twists that shock and devastate.
