The Engagement - Rilegato

“A gothic tale, filled with brilliantly creepy details.” (Suzy Hansen Financial Times (UK))

“As in the best of Patricia Highsmith, it’s not entirely clear whether a crime is being committed at all...it’s a measure of the novel’s quality that re-reading does not resolve everything but drives the ambiguities deeper...The Engagement reminds us of the powers of fiction.” (The Guardian Review (U.K.))

“A book of coercion and sexual games, fantasy and, yes, feminism, for those who prefer their erotic literature less Fifty Shades of Grey and more Jane Eyre...This high-octane theatre is perversely satisfying, even as we succumb to its manipulation.” (The Telegraph (U.K.))

“Hooper has crafted a terrific tale full of dark corners and dead-ends that leave the reader wondering what to believe. The result is a creepy collision between a psychological thriller and a very dark romance that has something for fans of either genre.” (Robert Dex Irish Examiner)

“Chloe Hooper’s second novel is a complex psychological thriller that draws on the rich literary history of madwomen in the attic, from Jane Eyre and Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ to Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca...The Engagement is shot through with a deeply erotic charge without being explicity pornographic. It’s no Fifty Shades of Grey; its kicks, and kicks in the teeth, are much more subtle.” (The Independent (U.K.))

“A probing analysis of the psychology of sex...Hooper has constructed a modern fairy tale...compelling, at times disturbing.” (The Herald (U.K.))

“[The Engagement] deftly explores the power of money and property, romance and sex.” (Marie Claire (UK))

“A chilling, compulsive read.” (Fanny Blake Woman & Home (UK))

“[A] seductive plot.” (Sebastian Shakespeare Tatler (UK))

“This beautifully crafted psychological thriller really got under my skin...Hooper’s achievement is to make us frightened for Liese and, increasingly, frightened of her, too.” (A.N. Wilson Reader’s Digest (U.K.))

Chloe Hooper was born in Melbourne in 1973. She was educated at the University of Melbourne and as a Fulbright Scholar at Columbia University, New York. Her first novel, A Child’s Book of True Crime, was a New York Times Notable Book and short-listed for the Orange Prize. She lives in Australia.