'I just loved it – it truly wedged itself into my brain. Absolutely vile and brilliant. Plaything is an unhinged melody, and it will serenade fans of the darkest narratives.' ALICE SLATER, author of Death of a Bookseller Anna is smart. Smarter than you, probably. But when she falls for the beautiful, enigmatic Caden, her need to get under his skin, to truly know him becomes overpowering. Anna’s new life in Cambridge is full of promise – she’s the top student in her PhD cohort, she has great friends and she has met an exhaustingly attractive man – but something is a little off. Perhaps it’s the routine violence of her lab work with animals, or maybe it’s something to do with her boyfriend’s icy reserve but it seems there is a kind of menace hiding beneath the Cambridge dream. When Anna and Caden's lives become tightly entangled, her obsession with Caden’s seemingly ever-present ex-girlfriend reaches a dangerous pitch... Just how far will she go to satiate her curiosity? ------------------- FROM THE REVIEWS FOR BEA SETTON’S BERLIN 'Terrific . . . [an] unsettling and compelling read' Observer 'I was completely absorbed' FRANCESCA REECE, author of Voyeur 'Compelling, raw and thrillingly strange' MONA AWAD, author of Bunny 'Cinematically vivid, and refreshingly honest' LISA HALLIDAY, author of Asymmetry
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This is a novel about toxic relationships, obsession and self-destruction. The protagonist is fairly unlikeable from the start, but in a way that I still found enjoyable to read. I really liked the pacing of the book, rather than being very quick with major plot points it slowly built up the relationships and the steps towards the inevitable end, and that isn't always easy to do. The little ways in which insecurity can spiral over time, how small reasonable-seeming curiosities can build on each other into obsession, felt very real.
Thanks to the publisher and netgalley for the ARC!