A dark, sad, unsettling and highly original book. You will be gripped from page one and drawn in to the troubled and increasingly fragile world of Stevie as year by year she finds herself more and more alienated from the world. A great debut novel, and there luckily there are move in the pipe-line.
When Stevie Searle almost dies in the accident that kills her mother, she doesn't see a shining path or a golden light. Instead, she sees everyone she's ever slighted, waiting to take a piece of her in a cold, dark room. The person whose place she took in the queue, the schoolmate she cheated off, the bus driver she didn't pay? All waiting. All wanting to take their revenge when she finally crosses over. Stevie is fascinated by the dark room, so she sends herself there again. And again. And again.
“I’ve never seen anyone capture sordid human nature so clearly. I was completely drawn in, totally immersed. I felt ill much of the time.” – Russell Kirkpatrick, on Slights
“Kaaron Warren is a fresh, amazingly talented voice out of Australia. You *must* read her work.” - Ellen Datlow
“Hugely and genuinely disturbing” - SciFi Now
“Simply gut-wrenching” - Jon Courtenay Grimwood, SFX
“Powerful stuff. So powerful, in fact, that my throat was hurting with my attempts to keep my emotions under control. I was completely drawn in, totally immersed. I felt ill much of the time.” - Russell Kirkpatrick, bestselling author of “Across the Face of the World”
Author
About Kaaron Warren
Kaaron Warren is an award-winning writer of short fiction, and her stories have appeared in many magazines and anthologies, including the British Fantasy Award-winning The Alsiso Project. Other short fiction awards include the Ditmar Award (twice) and the Aurealis Award.
