One man, handsome, kind, Mr Nice Guy, a favourite of everyone in town. Two women, caught up, helpless in his presence and his power, both careening down the dangerous highway to Hell. One woman knows this, the other is naively oblivious. Who lives, who dies … only one of the three has the power … But which one?
I chose The Quiet Tenant for an early night bedtime read, snuggled under the electric blanket, a new book. How good is that? After less than half a page of reading, time exploded and evaporated. When I next checked the clock it was four am. Still I couldn’t put it down.
In all my years of reading, rarely have I had such a compelling, subconscious reaction to a novel. And never, in all my years of reading have I been so swept up that I shouted at the book page, (TV screen, yes, book, never!). ‘Run, run NOW’, praying the character would hear my warning and save themselves!
The storyline is not a loud blockbuster plot. It is a hook-in-the-gut, hypnotically and tensely written piece of work. It is necessary that you, dear reader, experience this book from the very first sentence. You, like I, will feel the quickening in your gut, the outright appreciation of the author’s enormous talent and the incredible storyline and then savour the effect it will have on you all for yourself.
A rare and superbly tense and thrilling read.
Reviewed by Alison Logie
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ABOUT THE AUTHORI’m an author and an award-nominated journalist at The Independent, based in New York. My debut thriller The Quiet Tenant is published in 2023 by Knopf in the US and Little, Brown in the UK. Rights have sold in 30 territories. I also wrote a novel in French, which was published in 2020. It’s about a female bodybuilder tasked with managing her sister’s bakery. Really, it’s about bodies and the ways in which we try to feel at home in them. I studied political science and journalism at Sciences Po in Paris, as well as journalism at City, University of London, and I have an MS degree from Columbia Journalism School.
