The Worst Kind of Want

Liska Jacobs

'Sharply written . . . takes readers on a thrillingly doomed journey amid the simmering heat of an Italian landscape - a captivating portrayal of self and want' Christine Mangan author of Sunday Times bestselling Tangerine

To cool-headed fastidious Pricilla Messing Italy will be an escape a brief glimpse of freedom from a life that's starting to feel like one long decline.

Rescued from the bedside of her difficult mother forty-something Cilla finds herself called away to Rome to keep an eye on her wayward teenage niece Hannah. But after years of caregiving babysitting is the last thing Cilla wants to do. Instead she throws herself into Hannah's youthful heedless world - drinking dancing smoking - relishing the heady atmosphere of the Italian summer. After years of feeling used up and overlooked Cilla feels like she's coming back to life.

But being so close to Hannah brings up complicated memories making Cilla restless and increasingly reckless and a dangerous flirtation with a teenage boy soon threatens to send her into a tailspin.

With the sharp-edged insight of Ottessa Moshfegh and the taut seduction of Patricia Highsmith The Worst Kind of Want is a dark hypnotic literary noir about a woman whose unruly desires and troubled past push her to the brink of disaster.

***

Praise for The Worst Kind of Want:

'Masterfully constructed . . . Dazzling . . . Wonderfully surprising and a pleasure to read' LA Review of Books

'Worth obsessing over' PopSugar

'Noirish and sexy this provocative novel explores what it's like to be a woman on the edge and what happens when dreams are deferred for too long' Esquire

'As death-steeped sultry and delicious as the ancient Italian cities in which it's set' Lit Hub

'Intoxicating' Publishers Weekly

'Sets her narrator on a dark psychological journey in sweltering sun-bleached locales . . . Darkly compelling' Booklist

>