Looker

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What to expect

A hugely compulsive, dark, stylish and intense novel, simmering with Hitchcockian undertones - for readers of LULLABY, EILEEN or THE LEMON GROVE

'This intense, gripping first novel from Laura Sims shoehorns us into a gathering disquiet and sense of dread, heightened at every turn by our sympathetic understanding of her relentlessly unraveling protagonist. The precise, observant writing slips through the skin without ever calling attention to itself'
-Peter Straub, author of A Dark Matter and Interior Darkness

Have you ever wanted to steal someone else's life?

The Professor lives in Brooklyn; her partner Nathan has left her; she can't have a baby. All she's left with is Nathan's old moggy, Cat. Who she doesn't even like.

Then a celebrity actress moves into the area. She's beautiful, with long auburn hair, perfect skin, a lovely smile. She's got children - a baby, even. And a husband who seems to adore her. She leaves discarded household items and toys outside for thrift collection. She leaves her windows open, even at night.

There's no harm, the Professor thinks, in recycling those items. Or looking in through the illuminated glass at that shiny, happy family. Is there?

(P)2019 Headline Publishing Group Limited

Critics Review

A short, sharp breath of air . . . Built like a thriller (I tore through it in a day), its impact comes less from grand narrative twists than a queasily forensic examination of one woman's disintegrating life and mind . . . this is a novel I had been craving: an unflinching portrayal of women looking upon each other as disturbingly as men do
New Statesman
A simmering sense of dread dominates this brilliant Brooklyn-set debut . . . dazzlingly creepy storytelling, reminiscent of NOTES ON A SCANDAL. Will leave you checking your curtains at night, but this is an utterly absorbing read
Grazia
Written with a precise, sinister elegance, this is a gripping portrait of one woman's descent into madness
Heat
Unsettling and compelling
Tammy Cohen
Taut, compelling and packed with memorable phrases. It sings like a perfectly tuned piano
Big Issue
[A] slick, smart novella. . . cleverly explores the porous borders between life and the imagination. A head-rush novel that explores ideas about femininity and desirability via a thriller-style plot
Metro
Sims creates a compelling narrator, who is both sympathetic and disturbing
Bookseller, Editor's Choice for July
A slim novel that has maximum drama
Red magazine
In prose that moves between lyrical and caterwauling, the poet Laura Sims has pulled off the high-wire act of making bitterness delicious
Vogue
Ephemeral fiction with a hard landing - like a window, seen in passing, that glows and goes dark
New Yorker
A sugarcoated poison pill of psychological terror
Wall Street Journal
Looker is a powerful sylph of a book about creation and destruction and the permeable boundary between them
LitHub
Jealousy rears its ugly head in Sims's chilling and riveting debut. In this tightly plotted novel, Sims takes the reader fully into the mind of a woman becoming increasingly unhinged, and turns her emotionally fraught journey into a provocative tale about the dangers of coveting what belongs to another
Publishers Weekly, starred review
With an agile precision reminiscent of Lydia Davis, Laura Sims captures the obsessiveness of a woman who unravels after the collapse of her marriage. A taut, gripping portrait, all the more sinister for its elegance
Leni Zumas, author of RED CLOCKS
This intense, gripping first novel from Laura Sims shoehorns us into a gathering disquiet and sense of dread, heightened at every turn by our sympathetic understanding of her relentlessly unraveling protagonist. The precise, observant writing slips through the skin without ever calling attention to itself
Peter Straub, author of A Dark Matter and Interior Darkness
A dark and stylish drama featuring a self-aware yet unstable narrator
Booklist
Sims's debut is a breathless and unrelenting portrait of one woman's unraveling
Greer Hendricks, co-author of THE WIFE BETWEEN US
By the end you'll be gasping
People
Confronting and invigorating, a fine portrait of a psyche on the edge . . . although there's plenty of room for beauty in the writing, the quick-fire structure ramps up the pace, and there is an exciting precision and perceptiveness at work
New Zealand Listener
A gripping and multilayered novel
Woman's Weekly

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