A Kind of Intimacy

Description

Annie is morbidly obese, lonely and hopeful. She narrates her own increasingly bizarre attempts to ingratiate herself with her new neighbours, learn from past mistakes and achieve a "certain kind of intimacy" with the boy next door. Though Annie struggles to repress a murky history of violence, secrets and sexual mishaps her past is never too far behind her, finally shattering her denial in a compelling and bloody climax. A quirky and darkly comic debut.

Jenn Ashworth was born in 1982. Her first novel, A Kind of Intimacy, was published in 2009 and won a Betty Trask Award. COLD LIGHT, her second novel was published in 2011 to critical acclaim and she was chosen by BBC TV's The Culture Show as one of the 12 Best New British Writers. Her third novel, THE FRIDAY GOSPELS, will be published by Sceptre in 2013. She lives in Preston, Lancashire with her family and writes an award-winning blog at www.jennashworth.co.uk.

An intense and intriguing novel that never quite lets the reader get comfortable. It understands about the fuzzy boundary between the normal and the strange, and weaves them together in a gripping, ever-darkening narrative - Jenny Diski who wouldn't kill for a comic gift like Jenn Ashworth's? - Guardiana hugely readable debut novel...about the inability to know others and ourselves - Independent evokes a damaged mind with the empathy and confidence of Ruth Rendell - The Times extremely intense and powerfully intriguing - Waterstone's An intense and intriguing novel that never quite lets the reader get comfortable. It understands about the fuzzy boundary between the normal and the strange, and weaves them together in a gripping, ever-darkening narrative - Jenny Diski who wouldn't kill for a comic gift like Jenn Ashworth's? - Guardiana hugely readable debut novel...about the inability to know others and ourselves - Independent