Plaything

A tense and compulsive novel of unnatural fixation.

Anna is smart. Smarter than you, probably. But when she falls for the beautiful, enigmatic Caden, her need to get under his skin, to truly know him becomes overpowering.

Anna’s new life in Cambridge is full of promise - she’s the top student in her PhD cohort, she has great friends and she has met an exhaustingly attractive man - but something is a little off. Perhaps it’s the routine violence of her lab work with animals, or maybe it’s something to do with her boyfriend’s icy reserve, but it seems there is a kind of menace hiding beneath the Cambridge dream.

When Anna and Caden’s lives become tightly entangled, her obsession with Caden’s seemingly ever-present ex-girlfriend reaches a dangerous pitch… Just how far will she go to satiate her curiosity?

I just loved it – it truly wedged itself into my brain. Absolutely vile and brilliant. Plaything is an unhinged melody, and it will serenade fans of the darkest narratives. In this utterly gripping, stomach-turning and explosive novel, obsession and jealousy are heightened by the claustrophobia, paranoia and loneliness of lockdown. I couldn’t leave it alone, right until the bitter, bloody end. ― Alice Slater, author of Death of a Bookseller

Full of sticky moral situations punctuated with gory details ― Rose Cleary, author of How to Be a French Girl

Fascinating and mysterious, the darkness and depth of this daring novel will linger long after reading. Big big fan. ― Ashley Hickson-Lovence, author of Your Show

A seductive tale of infatuation and the complexities of romance. Setton’s talent for unravelling the love-drunk narrative is thrilling. ― Amy Twigg, author of Spoilt Creatures