Exquisite by Sarah Stovell @Sarahlovescrime @OrendaBooks #Exquisite #Teaser #Review

A chilling, exquisitely written and evocative thriller set in the Lake District, centring on the obsessive relationship that develops between two writers...

Bo Luxton has it all - a loving family, a beautiful home in the Lake District, and a clutch of bestselling books to her name.

Enter Alice Dark, an aspiring writer who is drifting through life, with a series of dead-end jobs and a freeloading boyfriend.

When they meet at a writers' retreat, the chemistry is instant, and a sinister relationship develops... Or does it?

Breathlessly pacey, taut and terrifying, Exquisite is a startlingly original and unbalancing psychological thriller that will keep you guessing until the very last page.

Exquisite by Sarah Stovell is published by Orenda Books in paperback on 15 June 2017.


Where to start? Where on earth?  Exquisite by Sarah Stovell is a book that took me by surprise, I was absolutely consumed by the story whilst reading it. The plot and the characters still lurk in my head. The voices of both Alice and Bo regularly pop into my mind, I ask myself questions about them, about their story. It’s a book that burrows its way into your soul, and clings on.

Two women, who at first introduction seem so very far apart. Bo, aged forty, is a successful novelist. She lives peacefully by the Lakes in Cumbria with her husband and her two small daughters. She’s confident, successful, intelligent and talented.

Alice, mid-twenties and drifting seems to be the complete opposite. Her boyfriend Jake is slovenly, lazy, keen on daytime parties and drink and drugs. She works, cash-in-hand at a language school. Her life seems to have no direction.

The common theme in Bo and Alice’s lives is writing, and whilst Bo has already carved out a great writing career, Alice can only dream of doing the same. Things may change when Alice is awarded a bursary to attend a Creative Writing course led by Bo.

Bo and Alice meet and immediately, the tension is ratcheted up by this very very talented writer and it soon becomes clear that these two women have another thing in common. They are both very damaged people, with pasts that haunt them and shape them and impact on their present.

What follows is a highly addictive, sophisticated and very twisted psychological thriller. The reader is exposed to the workings of the darkest of minds, and each page presents a question to the reader, although the answers are not always apparent.  The development of the intense and at times, very disturbing relationship that grows between Bo and Alice is so finely done, with some spectacular characterisation and surprising twists. The Lake District setting is beautifully portrayed and the contrast between that and Alice’s home town of Brighton is vividly done.

Throughout the story, the reader knows that something serious will happen, that is clear from the address of one of the narratives, however, it is not until almost the very end that we can be sure of the reliability of the narrators ...... or can we?

Exquisite deserves to be huge in 2017, it is quite extraordinary. At times uncomfortable, often shocking, but always compelling.  Sarah Stovell is hugely talented, Exquisite is an absolute triumph.

Sarah Stovell was born in 1977 and spent most of her life in the Home Counties before a season working in a remote North Yorkshire youth hostel made her realise she was a northerner at heart.

She now lives in Northumberland with her partner and two children and is a lecturer in Creative Writing at Lincoln University. 

Her debut psychological thriller, Exquisite, is set in the Lake District.