Lioness (PB)

Ockham Book Award Winner 2024

JANN MEDLICOTT Acorn PRIZE FOR Fiction

"A searing and urgent novel crackling with tension and intelligence, Lioness starts with a hiss and ends with a roar as protagonist Therese’s dawning awareness and growing rage reveals itself.

At first glance this is a psychological thriller about a privileged wealthy family and its unravelling. Look closer and it is an incisive exploration of wealth, power, class, female rage, and the search for authenticity.

Emily Perkins deftly wrangles a large cast of characters in vivid technicolour, giving each their moment in the sun, while dexterously weaving together multiple plotlines. Her acute observations and razor-sharp wit decimate the tropes of mid-life in moments of pure prose brilliance, leaving the reader gasping for more. Disturbing, deep, smart, and funny as hell, Lioness is unforgettable."

www.nzbookawards.nz

'The most exciting novel I've read in ages. I gulped it down, so readable, so EXCELLENT about people. Read it' Marian Keyes

'This novel is perfection' Glamour

'A coolly ironic look at modern womanhood. This is an excellent novel' The Times

You know how we say we devoured a story, and also that we were consumed by it? Eating and being eaten. It was like that with Claire, for me.

From humble beginnings, Therese has let herself grow used to a life of luxury after marrying into an empire-building family. But when rumours of corruption gather around her husband's latest development, the social opprobrium is shocking, the fallout swift, and Therese begins to look at her privileged and insular world with new eyes. In the flat below Therese, something else is brewing. Her neighbour Claire believes she's discovered the secret to living with freedom and authenticity, freeing herself from the mundanity of domesticity. Therese finds herself enchanted by the lure of the permissive zone Claire creates in her apartment - a place of ecstatic release.

All too quickly, Therese is forced to confront herself and her choices - just how did she become this person? And what exactly should she do about it?

'A thoughtful, intelligent novel about one woman's search for more meaning' Good Housekeeping

Emily Perkins

Paperback, 288 pages

H: 198mm W: 129mm