Cold Light: A Novel

by Jenn Ashworth

Overview

“Extremely intense and powerfully intriguing.”
—Waterstone’s

“[Ashworth] Evokes a damaged mind with the empathy and confidence of Ruth Rendell.”
—The Times (London)

Cold Light by Jenn Ashworth is a hauntingly beautiful and shocking psychological thriller in the vein of the bestselling novels of Tana French—a darkly compelling story of secrets between two teenage friends in a small English town. Ashworth already has created great buzz in the U.K. thanks to her stunning debut novel, A Kind of Intimacy, winner of the prestigious Betty Trask Award, and now Cold Light places her in elite literary company—alongside Laura Lippman, Kate Atkinson, and other acclaimed masters of intelligent, emotionally powerful mystery and suspense. An unforgettable tale of friendship and memory—and the shattering truth behind a forgotten dead body newly unearthed—Cold Light is a most welcome addition to the crime fiction and thriller ranks.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780062076038
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	10/16/2012
Edition description:	Original
Pages:	343
Product dimensions:	5.20(w) x 7.90(h) x 3.40(d)

About the Author

Jenn Ashworth's first book, A Kind of Intimacy, won the U.K.'s Betty Trask Award. She lives in Preston, Lancashire, with her family and writes an award-winning blog at www.jennashworth.co.uk.

Editorial Reviews

Set in a small English town, Ashworth’s second novel (after A Kind of Intimacy) offers an object lesson in the perils of concealing the past. For ten years, twenty-something Laura has kept mum about at least one dreadful secret: What really happened when her best friend Chloe drowned at age 14. The knowledge has crippled Laura’s hopes for a meaningful life. She holds a menial job as a shopping center cleaner and lives alone, fearful that mutual friend Emma might expose her. In her first-person recollections of the fateful months preceding Chloe’s death, Laura dwells—perhaps overmuch—on the minute details of her angst-ridden adolescence. Ashworth pulls no punches. Though some of the dark, British humor may be lost on an American audience, the author’s narrative is revealing, timely, and damning of tabloid-media sensationalism. Agent: Anthony Goff, David Highham Associates. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

Evokes a damaged mind with the empathy and confidence of Ruth Rendell.” — The Times (London)

“Hugely readable debut novel […] about the inability to know others and ourselves.” — The Independent

“Extremely intense and powerfully intriguing.” — Waterstone's

‘Ashworth has the rare gift of being able to make her reader feel perverse and voyeuristic, implicated somehow in the tragedy laid out on the pages.’ — Sunday Times (London)

A grimly atmospheric mystery. — Sunday Express (London)

A psychological thriller of the first order. — The Age (Australia)

Another cleverly skewed tale told from the self-conscious perspective of an outsider... arrestingly observant... Ashworth’s second book confirms that the first was no one-off... her talent could take her a long way’ — The Guardian

A wonderful tale, beautifully told. — Bella

A chilling, blackly funny novel with a surreal edge about the intensity of teenage friendship. — Grazia

From the Publisher

A chilling, blackly funny novel with a surreal edge about the intensity of teenage friendship.

Grazia

‘Ashworth has the rare gift of being able to make her reader feel perverse and voyeuristic, implicated somehow in the tragedy laid out on the pages.’

Sunday Times (London)

Hugely readable debut novel […] about the inability to know others and ourselves.

The Independent

A grimly atmospheric mystery.

Sunday Express (London)

Extremely intense and powerfully intriguing.

Waterstone's

Another cleverly skewed tale told from the self-conscious perspective of an outsider... arrestingly observant... Ashworth’s second book confirms that the first was no one-off... her talent could take her a long way’

The Guardian

A wonderful tale, beautifully told.

Bella

Evokes a damaged mind with the empathy and confidence of Ruth Rendell.

The Times (London)

A psychological thriller of the first order.

The Age (Australia)

Ten years after teenagers Chloe and Carol died in a suicide pact, the ground is finally being broken for their memorial—and another body is found. Compared to Tana French and Kate Atkinson, Betty Trask Award winner Ashworth offers a twisty thriller. With a 100,000-copy first printing; feeling good about this one.

Library Journal