Christmas 2015: The top 10 debut fiction books, The Independent

Maddie and Harry: she's an estate agent, he's a teacher. They'll say they live in the Black Country. They'll say how they met Jonathan Cotard, explain how they later argued, had a car accident, thought they'd killed someone. Thought they had. And as they search for a truth, they'll tell us their secrets, their mistakes. And we'll judge them. We'll judge Harry's fling with a schoolgirl and Maddie's previous life. We'll judge the nature of love and violence, good and evil. The Black Country. For Maddie and Harry, it's darker than it should be.

Begs to be read in one go, tugging the reader onwards through its intense and strangely intimate world. -- Alison Moore Obliquely yet menacingly told, increasingly horrific, and full of humour as dark as its title. -- M John Harrison

About the Author
Kerry Hadley-Pryce was born in the Black Country. She worked nights in a Wolverhampton petrol station before becoming a secondary school teacher. She wrote her first novel, The Black Country, whilst studying for an MA in Creative Writing at the Manchester Writing School at Manchester Metropolitan University, for which she gained a distinction and was awarded the Michael Schmidt Prize for Outstanding Achievement 2013-14. She is currently a PhD student at the University of Wolverhampton, researching Psychogeography and Black Country Writing. Gamble is her second novel.

Reviews

This is an addictive book that deserves to be up there with the likes of Gone Girl and Girl On The Train it's as good, if not better, than both. A dark and unsettling read that leaves you feeling like a voyeur of a car crash relationship (where you wouldn't look away even if you could), I really enjoyed it - 9/10 stars

-- Andrew Angel * Ebookwyrm's Book Reviews *

A couple whose uneasy relationship seems as unreliable as that in Gone Girl are driving home, a little the worse for drink, when they accidentally knock someone over, someone they know - but they choose to drive quickly on. The story, and their relationship, becomes increasingly bizarre ...

* CrimeTime *

The Black Country is a macabre triumph, whether you read it as a horror fable about love or a meditation on the controlling character of the artist. Either way, this ambitious and memorable first novel loiters like a rotting fish left behind the fridge. I mean this in a good way. The Black Country really is something else.

-- James Kidd * The Independent on Sunday *

Every so often a novel lands from out of nowhere and grabs you by the eyeballs. Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl was one such, but at least Flynn had some previous form. Kerry Hadley-Pryce's haunting and unnerving The Black Country is a debut of gothic ambition. The cover hints at David Lynch, and this twisted portrait of a marriage in continual breakdown, of distrust, paranoia and love turned to contempt is a little as though Gone Girl had been reimagined by Lynch.

-- James Kidd * South China Morning Post *

The Black Country is an excellent book, written in an astonishing voice by a very good writer, and deserves a wide audience.

-- Graeme Shimmin



Book Information
ISBN 9781784630348
Author Kerry Hadley-Pryce
Format Paperback
Page Count 176
Imprint Salt Publishing
Publisher Salt Publishing
Dimensions(mm) 198mm * 129mm * 13mm