GRANTA BEST OF YOUNG BRITISH NOVELISTS
From the Booker Prize-nominated author of The Water Cure comes a chilling new feminist fable based on the true story of an unsolved mystery . . .
'A shimmering fever-dream of a novel' Telegraph
Spring, 1951. Four people meet in a small French town: the baker and his wife; the ambassador and his wife. Two belong to the town, two are outsiders.
Some time later, strange things start happening. Horses drop dead in the fields. Children grow wild and unbiddable. Ghosts are sighted after dark. Someone is playing a dangerous game of cat and mouse – but who is the predator and who their prey?
Audacious and mesmerizing, Cursed Bread is a darkly erotic mystery about a town gripped by madness, envy like poison in the blood, and desire that burns and consumes.
'A dreamy sapphic romp' The Times
'Gauzy [and] gripping, a quietly rich maturation of Mackintosh's skill' Guardian
The Spectator Book of the Year 2023
Genre: Literary Fiction
From the Booker Prize-nominated author of The Water Cure comes a chilling new feminist fable based on the true story of an unsolved mystery . . .
'A shimmering fever-dream of a novel' Telegraph
Spring, 1951. Four people meet in a small French town: the baker and his wife; the ambassador and his wife. Two belong to the town, two are outsiders.
Some time later, strange things start happening. Horses drop dead in the fields. Children grow wild and unbiddable. Ghosts are sighted after dark. Someone is playing a dangerous game of cat and mouse – but who is the predator and who their prey?
Audacious and mesmerizing, Cursed Bread is a darkly erotic mystery about a town gripped by madness, envy like poison in the blood, and desire that burns and consumes.
'A dreamy sapphic romp' The Times
'Gauzy [and] gripping, a quietly rich maturation of Mackintosh's skill' Guardian
The Spectator Book of the Year 2023
Genre: Literary Fiction
Praise for this book
"Sophie Mackintosh takes a true story and asks what any of us really know about what is true? Our desires poison us. Shame and longing intertwine. We hide even from ourselves...This novel is subtle and devouring; reading it is like being slowly swallowed by the night." - Rowan Hisayo Buchanan
"The thing I love most about this book is that even if you know the plot, there's no way to anticipate how Sophie Mackintosh handles the narrative. The sentences here are pristine, the structure is on point, the entire novel unravels into the grotesque in an ending that is visceral & wild. She's a master. You won't be disappointed. But then again, with Sophie's books, you never are." - Sarah Rose Etter
"Sensuous and haunted, like Madame Bovary reworked as a ghost story - an incredible book about desire, pleasure, beauty. Sophie's fiction always has a gauzy quality, filled with strange, languid images, which rise to a narrative crescendo like clues in a detective novel. She makes it look effortless." - Jo Hamya
"Vivid and shocking, written with stunning, incantatory prose, Cursed Bread is the kind of book that upends your nervous system." - Julia May Jonas
"Intoxicating, sumptuous, and savage, Cursed Bread has a gothic sensibility that is entirely original. In Mackintosh's hands, the strange, compulsive machinations of desire become luminous and ghastly all at once." - Alexandra Kleeman
"Cursed Bread floored me in its first page and didn't let up for the rest of its strange, hot, festering journey. It always feels like a true privilege to be allowed time with Sophie Mackintosh's brilliant mind and her third novel just confirms that she is only getting better and weirder and wilder. A knockout." - Megan Nolan
"Bloody, sexy, sinister, strange. This book will take hold of you." - Saba Sams
"Her writing is so sleek, the characters mysterious and yet indelible - a taut, seductive, thrilling gem of a novel." - Olivia Sudjic
"Cursed Bread is a gorgeously atmospheric and feverishly compulsive novel about amorphous longings and desires, and the hot shame of wanting more than you deserve." - Lara Williams
"The thing I love most about this book is that even if you know the plot, there's no way to anticipate how Sophie Mackintosh handles the narrative. The sentences here are pristine, the structure is on point, the entire novel unravels into the grotesque in an ending that is visceral & wild. She's a master. You won't be disappointed. But then again, with Sophie's books, you never are." - Sarah Rose Etter
"Sensuous and haunted, like Madame Bovary reworked as a ghost story - an incredible book about desire, pleasure, beauty. Sophie's fiction always has a gauzy quality, filled with strange, languid images, which rise to a narrative crescendo like clues in a detective novel. She makes it look effortless." - Jo Hamya
"Vivid and shocking, written with stunning, incantatory prose, Cursed Bread is the kind of book that upends your nervous system." - Julia May Jonas
"Intoxicating, sumptuous, and savage, Cursed Bread has a gothic sensibility that is entirely original. In Mackintosh's hands, the strange, compulsive machinations of desire become luminous and ghastly all at once." - Alexandra Kleeman
"Cursed Bread floored me in its first page and didn't let up for the rest of its strange, hot, festering journey. It always feels like a true privilege to be allowed time with Sophie Mackintosh's brilliant mind and her third novel just confirms that she is only getting better and weirder and wilder. A knockout." - Megan Nolan
"Bloody, sexy, sinister, strange. This book will take hold of you." - Saba Sams
"Her writing is so sleek, the characters mysterious and yet indelible - a taut, seductive, thrilling gem of a novel." - Olivia Sudjic
"Cursed Bread is a gorgeously atmospheric and feverishly compulsive novel about amorphous longings and desires, and the hot shame of wanting more than you deserve." - Lara Williams
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