Paul

From an award-winning talent comes a mesmeric debut novel about a young woman falling under the spell of an older man. Frances is a graduate student spending a summer volunteering in rural France, in the hope that tending vegetables and harvesting honey will distract her from a scandal that drove her out of Paris, her research unfinished and her sense of self unmoored. At the eco-farm Noa Noa, named for his adventures in Tahiti, she comes under the influence of its charismatic and domineering owner, Paul. As his hold over her tightens and her plans come unstuck, she finds herself entangled in a strange, uneven relationship. On a fraught road trip across the South of France, both are forced to reckon with uncomfortable truths. A compelling and perturbing story of power, passivity and the cage of being 'good', Paul introduces a novelist of extraordinary perspicacity and lyricism. A work of dark, shimmering genius. The novel explores the toxicity of patriarchy with excoriating intelligence, verve and originality. REBECCA TAMAS, author of Witch Lafarge's prose is faultless. BETTY TRASK AWARD JUDGES