Megan Abbott

A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR DAILY TELEGRAPH * DAILY MIRROR * DAILY EXPRESS * WALL STREET JOURNAL * BOSTON GLOBE * LIBRARY JOURNAL * CRIMEREADSAN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERThe mesmerising new thriller, set in the hothouse world of a ballet school, from the bestselling and award-winning writer Megan Abbott.Dara and Marie were trained as ballet dancers by their glamorous mother, founder of the Durant School of Dance. After their parents died in a tragic accident nearly a dozen years ago, the sisters took over running the school together with Charlie, Dara's husband and once their mother's prized student. But when a suspicious accident occurs, just at the onset of the school's annual performance of The Nutcracker - a season of competition, anxiety, and exhilaration - an interloper arrives and threatens their delicate balance.'Compulsively readable' RUTH WARE'A book you will not be able to forget' MARK BILLINGHAM'My thriller of the year' JAKE KERRIDGE, DAILY TELEGRAPH, BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR'A twisting, turning story of revenge and redemption' STYLIST'The feeling of menace grows stronger with every page' GUARDIAN'Slow-burning and feverish, with all the intensity of a classic American film noir' MAIL ON SUNDAY'Charged with foreboding, the novel throbs with gothic tension' IRISH TIMES'Dark and juicy and tinged with horror' NEW YORK TIMES'Dark and mesmerising' HARRIET TYCE'This is Megan Abbott working at the absolute height of her talent' ATTICA LOCKE'There's no one who captures the atmosphere of a tight-knit hothouse world, in all its feverish beauty and brutality, quite like Megan Abbott' TANA FRENCH

Best Book of the YearNPR - Wall Street Journal - Boston Globe - Library Journal - CrimeReads - LitReactor - Air Mail Longlisted for the Joyce Carol Oates Prize A TODAY Show #ReadWithJenna Book Club PickAn Instant New York Times BestsellerNew York Times bestselling and award-winning author Megan Abbott's exquisite and disquieting new novel, "dark and juicy and tinged with horror" (The New York Times Books Review), set against the hothouse of a family-run ballet studio. With their long necks and matching buns and pink tights, Dara and Marie Durant have been dancers since they can remember. Growing up, they were homeschooled and trained by their glamorous mother, founder of the Durant School of Dance. After their parents' death in a tragic accident nearly a dozen years ago, the sisters began running the school together, along with Charlie, Dara's husband and once their mother's prized student. Marie, warm and soft, teaches the younger students; Dara, with her precision, trains the older ones; and Charlie, sidelined from dancing after years of injuries, rules over the back office. Circling around one another, the three have perfected a dance, six days a week, that keeps the studio thriving. But when a suspicious accident occurs, just at the onset of the school's annual performance of The Nutcracker--a season of competition, anxiety, and exhilaration--an interloper arrives and threatens the sisters' delicate balance. Taut and unnerving, The Turnout is Megan Abbott at the height of her game. With uncanny insight and hypnotic writing, it is a sharp and strange dissection of family ties and sexuality, femininity and power, and a tale that is both alarming and irresistible.

Bestselling and award-winning author Megan Abbott's revelatory, mesmerizing, and game-changing new novel set against the hothouse of a family-run ballet studio, and an interloper who arrives to bring down the carefully crafted Eden-like facade. Ballet flows through their veins. Dara and Marie Durant were dancers since birth, with their long necks and matching buns and pink tights, homeschooled and trained by their mother. Decades later the Durant School of Dance is theirs. The two sisters, together with Charlie, Dara's husband and once their mother's prize student, inherited the school after their parents died in a tragic accident nearly a dozen years ago. Marie, warm and soft, teaches the younger students; Dara, with her precision, trains the older ones; and Charlie, back broken after years of injuries, rules over the back office. Circling around each other, the three have perfected a dance, six days a week, that keeps the studio thriving. But when a suspicious accident occurs, just at the onset of the school's annual performance of The Nutcracker, a season of competition, anxiety, and exhilaration, an interloper arrives and threatens the delicate balance of everything they've worked for. Taut and unnerving, The Turnout is Megan Abbott at the height of her game. With uncanny insight and hypnotic writing, it is a sharp and strange dissection of family ties and sexuality, femininity and power, and a tale that is both alarming and irresistible.

Best Book of the YearNPR - Wall Street Journal - Boston Globe - Library Journal - CrimeReads - LitReactor - Air Mail Longlisted for the Joyce Carol Oates Prize A TODAY Show #ReadWithJenna Book Club PickAn Instant New York Times BestsellerNew York Times bestselling and award-winning author Megan Abbott's exquisite and disquieting new novel, "dark and juicy and tinged with horror" (The New York Times Books Review), set against the hothouse of a family-run ballet studio. With their long necks and matching buns and pink tights, Dara and Marie Durant have been dancers since they can remember. Growing up, they were homeschooled and trained by their glamorous mother, founder of the Durant School of Dance. After their parents' death in a tragic accident nearly a dozen years ago, the sisters began running the school together, along with Charlie, Dara's husband and once their mother's prized student. Marie, warm and soft, teaches the younger students; Dara, with her precision, trains the older ones; and Charlie, sidelined from dancing after years of injuries, rules over the back office. Circling around one another, the three have perfected a dance, six days a week, that keeps the studio thriving. But when a suspicious accident occurs, just at the onset of the school's annual performance of The Nutcracker--a season of competition, anxiety, and exhilaration--an interloper arrives and threatens the sisters' delicate balance. Taut and unnerving, The Turnout is Megan Abbott at the height of her game. With uncanny insight and hypnotic writing, it is a sharp and strange dissection of family ties and sexuality, femininity and power, and a tale that is both alarming and irresistible.

From the award-winning author of The Turnout and Give Me Your Hand: the searing novel of friendship and betrayal that inspired the USA Network series, praised by Gillian Flynn as "Lord of the Flies set in a high-school cheerleading squad...Tense, dark, and beautifully written." Addy Hanlon has always been Beth Cassidy's best friend and trusted lieutenant. Beth calls the shots and Addy carries them out, a long-established order of things that has brought them to the pinnacle of their high-school careers. Now they're seniors who rule the intensely competitive cheer squad, feared and followed by the other girls -- until the young new coach arrives. Cool and commanding, an emissary from the adult world just beyond their reach, Coach Colette French draws Addy and the other cheerleaders into her life. Only Beth, unsettled by the new regime, remains outside Coach's golden circle, waging a subtle but vicious campaign to regain her position as "top girl" -- both with the team and with Addy herself. Then a suicide focuses a police investigation on Coach and her squad. After the first wave of shock and grief, Addy tries to uncover the truth behind the death -- and learns that the boundary between loyalty and love can be dangerous terrain. The raw passions of girlhood are brought to life in this taut, unflinching exploration of friendship, ambition, and power. Award-winning novelist Megan Abbott, writing with what Tom Perrotta has hailed as "total authority and an almost desperate intensity," provides a harrowing glimpse into the dark heart of the all-American girl.

A life-changing secret destroys an unlikely friendship in this "magnetic" psychological thriller from the Edgar Award-winning author of Dare Me and The Turnout (Meg Wolitzer). You told each other everything. Then she told you too much. Kit has risen to the top of her profession and is on the brink of achieving everything she wanted. She hasn't let anything stop her. But now someone else is standing in her way: Diane. Best friends at seventeen, their shared ambition made them inseparable. Until the day Diane told Kit her secret -- the worst thing she'd ever done, the worst thing Kit could imagine -- and it blew their friendship apart. Kit is still the only person who knows what Diane did. And now Diane knows something about Kit that could destroy everything she's worked so hard for. How far would Kit go to make the hard work, the sacrifice, worth it in the end? What wouldn't she give up? Diane thinks Kit is just like her. Maybe she's right. Ambition: it's in the blood . . . Shortlisted for the CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Award

A stunning, unputdownable psychological thriller from acclaimed author Megan Abbott.

A stunning, unputdownable psychological thriller from acclaimed author Megan Abbott.

Sex, violence and corruption collide in this gritty vigilante thriller set in 1970s Washington DC. When her younger sister is found at the center of a brutal murder investigation, tough-as-nails Sheriff Normandy Gold is forced to dive headfirst into the seedy world of 1970s prostitution and soon discovers a twisted conspiracy leading right to the White House.

Mad Men Carousel is an episode-by-episode guide to all seven seasons of AMC's Mad Men. This book collects TV and movie critic Matt Zoller Seitz’s celebrated Mad Men recaps—as featured on New York magazine's Vulture blog—for the first time, including never-before-published essays on the show’s first three seasons. Seitz’s writing digs deep into the show’s themes, performances, and filmmaking, examining complex and sometimes confounding aspects of the series. The complete series—all seven seasons and ninety-two episodes—is covered. Each episode review also includes brief explanations of locations, events, consumer products, and scientific advancements that are important to the characters, such as P.J. Clarke’s restaurant and the old Penn Station; the inventions of the birth control pill, the Xerox machine, and the Apollo Lunar Module; the release of the Beatles’ Revolver and the Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds; and all the wars, protests, assassinations, and murders that cast a bloody pall over a chaotic decade. Mad Men Carousel is named after an iconic moment from the show’s first-season finale, “The Wheel,” wherein Don delivers an unforgettable pitch for a new slide projector that’s centered on the idea of nostalgia: “the pain from an old wound.” This book will soothe the most ardent Mad Men fan’s nostalgia for the show. New viewers, who will want to binge-watch their way through one of the most popular TV shows in recent memory, will discover a spoiler-friendly companion to one of the most multilayered and mercurial TV shows of all time. It's the perfect gift for Mad Men fans and obsessives. Also available from Matt Zoller Seitz: The Oliver Stone Experience, The Wes Anderson Collection: Bad Dads, The Wes Anderson Collection: The Grand Budapest Hotel, and The Wes Anderson Collection.

Almost unbearably tense, chilling and addictive . . . Exceptional' - Paula Hawkins, author of Girl on the TrainA mother knows best . . . doesn't she?Talented and determined, Devon is the centre of her ambitious parents' world, and the lynchpin of their marriage. There is nothing Katie and Eric wouldn't do for her.When a violent hit-and-run accident sends shockwaves through their close-knit community, Katie is immediately concerned for her daughter, a rising star of the gymnastics world. She and Eric have worked so hard to protect Devon from anything that might distract or hurt her. That's what every parent wants for their child, after all. Even if they don't realize how much you've sacrificed for them. Even if they are keeping secrets from you . . . Plotted with all the brilliance of Dare Me, and written with the compassion of The Fever, the astonishing You Will Know Me - dark and tender by turns - is an unforgettable novel by Megan Abbott.

A "shocking and perfect" bestseller about family and ambition from the award-winning author of Dare Me and The Turnout (New York Times Book Review​). How far will you go to achieve a dream? That's the question a celebrated coach poses to Katie and Eric Knox after he sees their daughter Devon, a gymnastics prodigy and Olympic hopeful, compete. For the Knoxes there are no limits -- until a violent death rocks their close-knit gymnastics community and everything they have worked so hard for is suddenly at risk. As rumors swirl among the other parents, Katie tries frantically to hold her family together while also finding herself irresistibly drawn to the crime itself. What she uncovers -- about her daughter's fears, her own marriage, and herself -- forces Katie to consider whether there's any price she isn't willing to pay to achieve Devon's dream. From a writer with "exceptional gifts for making nerves jangle and skin crawl" (Janet Maslin), You Will Know Me is a breathless rollercoaster of a novel about the desperate limits of parental sacrifice, furtive desire, and the staggering force of ambition.

A haunting tale of innocence lost and the dark undercurrents of adolescent friendship.The End of Everything by Megan Abbott, author of Dare Me, is a taut and suspenseful novel of friendship, loss and the complexities of female adolescence. Selected for the Richard and Judy Book Club, this unforgettable story delves into the aftermath of a young girl's disappearance.On a close-knit street, where the clink of glass on glass mingles with the heat of summer, two girls on the brink of adolescence throw cartwheels on the grass. Lizzie and Evie, best friends who share everything – until one shimmering afternoon, when Evie vanishes without a trace.Caught between imaginary guilt, a sense of betrayal, and her own powerful needs, Lizzie's voice is as arresting as her story. Haunted by the fear that she failed to grasp a clue to Evie's fate, Lizzie must navigate the complex needs of the adults around her while grappling with a loss that threatens to overwhelm.The End of Everything is no ordinary tale of a child abduction. In this startling novel, Megan Abbott takes readers on a harrowing journey through the dark landscape of a young girl's psyche as she confronts the painful complexities of family, friendship, and her own emerging identity.

Deenie, Gabby and Lise are best friends - a tight girl-unit negotiating their way through the troubled waters of their teens, a world of sex, secrets and intense relationships. When first Lise then Gabby falls prey to a mysterious illness, hysteria sweeps their school and, as more girls succumb, Deenie finds herself an outsider, baffled by the terrifying illness and scared that it could all be because of something she has done. Suffering with Deenie are her dad and her brother, both protective of Deenie, but each with secrets of their own . . . The Fever is an explosive novel in which Megan Abbott explores the lethal power of guilt and desire, and how mass hysteria can grip a community, making real our deepest fears.

Shortlisted for the CWA Steel Dagger Dark, dangerous and compulsively readable, Dare Me by Megan Abbott is a gripping exploration of the teenage psyche. There's something dangerous about the boredom of teenage girls. Coach said that once. She said it like she knew, and understood. When Colette French arrives at school one fall and takes charge of the cheer squad, she brings a hint of threat. Sleek, remote and careless, she transforms the girls into warriors - and rivals. Addy and Beth find that for the first time they have secrets from one another. But their mentor is playing her own deadly game, and there is everything to lose.'Tense, dark and beautifully written' Gillian Flynn

The panic unleashed by a mysterious contagion threatens the bonds of family and community in a seemingly idyllic suburban community in this "engrossing, disturbing, panic attack of a novel" from the award-winning author of The Turnout and Dare Me (Jodi Picoult). The Nash family is close-knit. Tom is a popular teacher, father of two teens: Eli, a hockey star and girl magnet, and his sister Deenie, a diligent student. Their seeming stability, however, is thrown into chaos when Deenie's best friend is struck by a terrifying, unexplained seizure in class. Rumors of a hazardous outbreak spread through the family, school and community. As hysteria and contagion swell, a series of tightly held secrets emerges, threatening to unravel friendships, families and the town's fragile idea of security. A chilling story about guilt, family secrets and the lethal power of desire, The Fever affirms Megan Abbott's reputation as "one of the most exciting and original voices of her generation" (Laura Lippman).

By the author of Dare Me and The End of Everything Femmes fatales. Obsessive love. Double crosses. How does a respectable young woman fall into Los Angeles's hard-boiled underworld? Shadow-dodging through the glamorous world of 1950s Hollywood and its seedy flip side, Megan Abbott's debut, Die a Little, is a gem of the darkest hue. This ingenious twist on a classic noir tale tells the story of Lora King, a schoolteacher, and her brother Bill, a junior investigator with the district attorney's office. Lora's comfortable, suburban life is jarringly disrupted when Bill falls in love with a mysterious young woman named Alice Steele, a Hollywood wardrobe assistant with a murky past. Made sisters by marriage but not by choice, the bond between Lora and Alice is marred by envy and mistrust. Spurred on by inconsistencies in Alice's personal history and possibly jealous of Alice's hold on her brother, Lora finds herself lured into the dark alleys and mean streets of seamy Los Angeles. Assuming the role of amateur detective, she uncovers a shadowy world of drugs, prostitution, and ultimately, murder. Lora's fascination with Alice's "sins" increases in direct proportion to the escalation of her own relationship with Mike Standish, a charmingly amoral press agent who appears to know more about his old friend Alice than he reveals. The deeper Lora digs to uncover Alice's secrets, the more her own life begins to resemble Alice's sinister past--and present. Steeped in atmospheric suspense and voyeuristic appeal, Die a Little shines as a dark star among Hollywood lights.