Lesley Glaister

Four sisters remain in their childhood home, trapped by the fear of the dead father who still governs their lives.

Honour Thy Father

Blasted Things

Lamb secretly inhabits the cellar of an elderly man for whom she cleans, her life a precarious balancing act, until she meets Doggo, a young criminal on the run. Glimpsing in one another the possibility of finding solace, and maybe even love, they must first learn to trust each other.

Now You See Me

Lesley Glaister brings all her literary storytelling skills to this dark and magical fantasy about a young girl, Tula, who inhabits a frightening world where hiding your differences may be the only way to survive and trusting the wrong person can be fatal.Packed with twists and turns and exploring the timely issues of betrayal, resistance, the strength of love and the intricacies of teenage relationships, Aphra's Child will capture the attention and admiration of readers who savour accomplished fantasy coupled with bewitching writing that echoes Philip Pullman, JK Rowling and Joan Aitkin.

Aphra's Child

World War I is over. As a nurse at the front, Clementine has found and lost love, but has settled for middle class marriage. Vincent had half his face blown off, and wants more than life offers now. Drawn together by their shared experiences at the Front, they have a compulsive relationship, magnetic and parasitic, played out with blackmail and ending in disaster for one of them.

'Crime writing of the highest order, creepy. with satisfying fits of the shivers' - the Sunday Times

Sheer Blue Bliss

Four English sisters share a terrible family secret in this novel from “the suspense writers’ suspense writer” and author of Trick or Treat (Harper’s Bazaar). Winner of the Somerset Maugham and Betty Trask Awards In a decaying house along the marshy Fenlands of Eastern England, four sisters—Milly, Agatha, and identical, inseparable twins Ellen and Esther—have lived in self-imposed isolation for more than sixty years. Like good sisters, they bicker, go about their daily routines, and believe the bright myth they’ve created about their childhood. Sometimes Milly can recall a blessedly unexceptional youth of ordinary days, domestic tranquility, and young love. But what came after is so much more consuming, and so much harder to forget. So are the questions no one dares to answer out loud . . . Why does Milly still count the knives? What was the corruption their father warned them about? Was their mother really swallowed up by the roaring river? And why does no one sing to Baby George anymore, who’s locked away in the cellar? As a ceaseless rain lashes away at the house, the sisters prepare for a coming storm. With it comes the threat of steadily rising waters that will give up the secrets still holding them in thrall. “A fairytale gone gruesomely wrong”, Lesley Glaister’s debut novel was the recipient of the Somerset Maugham Award, for which she joined the likes of Angela Carter, Doris Lessing, Sarah Waters, and Ian McEwan (The Literary Review). An “eerily tragic and mesmerizing first novel” (Publishers Weekly), Honour Thy Father is “a true original” (The Sunday Times).

A Novel

A remote, crumbling house; four sisters; and the secrets that imprison them... 'Before Gillian Flynn, there was Lesley Glaister' Harper's Bazaar 'Frightening yet eerily beautiful ... Lesley Glaister is adept, original and mature' Hilary Mantel In a remote, crumbling house in the Fens live four sisters - Agatha, Milly, and Ellen and Esther - identical twins so closely linked as to be almost one person. They have lived there all their lives, trapped still by the fear of their dead father, who governs his daughters' lives from beyond the grave. And then there is George, another inhabitant, imprisoned in the cellar. Little by little, macabre events come to light: events that transform an idyllic country childhood into a world of eccentric isolation. 'Eerie and satisfying - a horror story told with tenderness' Sunday Times

The Private Parts of Women

An orphan and a fugitive find a connection in their secret pasts in this “love story that moves with the pace of a thriller” from an award-winning author (Yorkshire Post). At sixteen, Lamb walks out on her life. Her parents are dead and she has no brothers or sisters. For money, she cleans people’s homes. For shelter, she lives in the cellar of an elderly client. For survival, she imagines herself as a tightrope walker—one foot in front of the other, eyes straight ahead, and never allowing anyone to touch her, lest she lose her balance. Then she meets Doggo. And Lamb can feel herself falling. Doggo walked out on his life, too—or more precisely, he ran. A fugitive fleeing from a violent criminal past, he needs Lamb’s help staying under the radar. Quick-tempered, foul-mouthed, yet surprisingly tender, Doggo needs Lamb in other ways, too. But the closer they get, the more Lamb risks her precarious balance between life and death. And fear has never felt so comforting. Now You See Me, from Somerset Maugham Award winner Lesley Glaister, is an empowering novel about loneliness, trust, the fictions we tell ourselves to survive, and the primal need to connect. It also “boasts a protagonist so heartbreakingly well-realized that you are forced to live through her eyes, in her head, her heart . . . if only all fiction made us worry and care so hard, posed us such dreadfully difficult questions” (The Guardian). “Glaister is at her best . . . written in the crisply poetic prose for which she’s known, [she] transforms the bleakest situations into compelling fiction.” —The Independent “Before Gillian Flynn, there was Lesley Glaister.” —Harper’s Bazaar

Did Patrick Mount, philosopher and visionary, discover the secret of sheer bliss? And why did he disappear? If Connie Benson, his former lover, knows the secret, she's not telling. A reclusive artist, she has kept her final portrait of Mount under wraps for over thirty years. Finally, she has decided to unveil it at a London exhibition. But stepping out of seclusion brings her into the orbit of one of Mount's most terrifying deciples. As events veer out of control, Connie finds herself fighting for her life...

The perfect Halloween novel! 'Before Gillian Flynn, there was Lesley Glaister' Harper's Bazaar 'Glaister has the uncomfortable knack of putting her finger on things we most fear, of exposing the darkness within' Independent on Sunday All Nell's life, Olive Owen has lived next door but one. And all her life, Nell has hated her. Even at school Olive had sparkled indecently, turning heads. Nell has a son, her pleasure and her shame, though now she lives alone. Nell is sharp in all the places Olive is round. When Wolfe moves into the house in between them, their quiet street is transformed. A lonely, spirited eight-year-old boy, he knocks on their doors at Halloween and invites them to his bonfire party. As the fireworks flare, he finds himself in the middle of an ancient conflict, grudges bared and burning with a fury he could never have imagined. 'A perfect, black little tale' Observer

Trick or Treat

Inis has run away from her husband and children. Her new neighbour Trixie is eighty-four years old and a hymn-singing Salvation Army veteran. Trixie's life is one of apparent calm but beneath the surface lie not one but three different personalities. One of them is very private. And very dangerous.

The truth behind a one-night stand becomes just as terrifying as the consequences, “engrossing” (The Guardian). Nina Todd is a woman of unextraordinary looks, with a dependable boyfriend and a menial job in Sheffield. It’s what she’s craved for years—a completely normal life. Then, while on a business trip in Blackpool, she’s approached by a younger man in the Hotel Astoria. She should have said no, but he was too handsome, and too persuasive to let go. The only trouble is . . . now he won’t let her go. What can he possibly want with her? He doesn’t even know her real name. It wasn’t a random pick-up. Nina’s the one Rupert had been searching for. And he’s not giving up on her. Wherever she goes, Rupert will be there, too—gorgeous, irresistible, distracting, and determined to rip apart Nina’s newly ordered life. Now all she has to fear is her relationship and her job. She’ll never suspect there’s so much more. Nina doesn’t even know his real name. If she did, she’d run like hell. What begins as a fatal attraction takes a terrifying detour as the paths of two apparent strangers converge, in this psychological thriller from “the suspense writers’ suspense writer” (Harper’s Bazaar). “A gripping page-turner.” —Cosmopolitan “Horribly plausible and crisply executed.” —The Sunday Telegraph

Nina Todd Has Gone

Opportunity for the Right Applicants. Housekeeper/companions required. Would suit young couple. Remote, rural location. Cooking, cleaning, gardening and caring duties. Applicants must be self-sufficient and resourceful. It seems like the perfect job for Cassie and Graham. She wants an adventure before she has a child. A year away might convince Graham to settle down, curb his roving eye. Graham seeks inspiration for his painting. He wants Cassie but he wants freedom too - a balancing act as difficult as the ladder trick he tries to perfect. This could be the answer. But Woolagong Station, at the edge of the desert, is eeriely further away from civilisation than they expected. Larry, their smooth, enigmatic employer, runs his house in a discomfiting fashion. Why is there no radio? Why is there no post from home? Why does Mara, his wife, live sedated in a shed? And how does Larry intuit things he could not possibly know? Everything warps under the blazing Australian sun - their sense of direction, their sex drives, even their sense of right and wrong. And the freedom to roam soon begins to feel like a dangerous prison… Brilliantly evoking the paranoia and menace lurking behind the most innocent seeming landscape, Lesley Glaister writes of human behaviour at its most edgy and unnerving.As Far As You Can Gosees her at the top of her form - darkly erotic and utterly riveting.

As Far as You Can Go

She always felt different - and now she knows why. 'An outstanding novel which confirms Glaister's command of the domestic and the bizarre' Independent on Sunday 'Enormously enjoyable' Nick Hornby Jennifer is about to turn thirteen and is suffering more than the usual teenage confusion. She's lonely and her parents are unfashionably strange, so she lives in her imagination, dreaming of acceptance, to be popular and normal. Then Jennifer learns that her supposed parents are really her grandparents, and that her mother deserted her years ago. So when Bronwyn, the new girl at school, and the sinister Johnny crash into her life, adventures with them - no matter how dangerous - seem immediately more attractive. 'Glaister's rounded gift is to show life as it really is' Independent on Sunday

Digging to Australia

Nina Todd is not the sort of person you'd notice - and that's the way she likes it. She lives a quiet life: dull job, dependable boyfriend, no disruptions. When Nina meets Rupert in a hotel, it leads to an empty adulterous encounter that she'd rather forget. But it soon becomes clear that Rupert won't. Is it pure infatuation, or something more sinister? Who is Rupert, and what is the power he holds over her? And who is Nina Todd?

When Cassie sees a job advertised for a couple to run a remote Australian farm, she thinks it will be the perfect escape for her and Graham. But trapped under the baking sun of the outback, paranoia sets in. There's no radio and they send but never receive any letters. Their enigmatic and unusually forgiving boss Larry and his wife Mara have secrets, sedatives, and some very odd habits: a result of their isolated lifestyle or something more sinister? And there's always the sensation, in the stark brush of the red desert, that eyes are watching them ...

As Far As You Can Go

The last time Dodie sees her mother alive, Stella is unusually busy, tattily splendid in an old red velvet dress. Soon after this, Dodie's brother Seth goes missing: the only trace of him is through postcards signed 'Yours in the Lord' addresses from the Soul Life Centre, New York state. When Stella hangs herself, Dodie must leave her baby Jake at home and cross the Atlantic to bring Seth beck from the mysterious Soul Life Centre. But when she arrives, Seth is always one day away from seeing her. She becomes drawn - not always willingly - into the Brothers and Sisters' communal living, meditation, fasting and chanting. Until baby Jake unexpectedly arrives at Soul Life and events take a shocking turn for Dodie. In a parallel narrative, Stella's sister Melanie tells the story of their teenage years in the 1970s and their shared affair with Bogart, a messianic hippy with shrewd ambition. These two compelling stories collide in a series of shocking revelations and an exhilarating conclusion. Heartfelt and frightening, Chosen is Lesley Glaister at the top of her game.

Chosen

Set between 1989 and the downfall of Ceaușescu, and 2013, The Squeeze travels between Edinburgh, Romania and Oslo and see this �multi‑award-winning and bestselling author at the height of her powers.Marta, a teenager trafficked from Romania in the early 1990s is forced to work as a prostitute in Edinburgh. Mats, a Norwegian businessman, who longs only to be a good husband and father, becomes involved with Marta and both their lives are wrenched - for good or ill - in new directions.Told in a splintered narrative style that allows glimpses into several points of view, The Squeeze explores the transactions that take place between men and women.Sex, money and the desire for love, are at its heart.

Lesley Glaister

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