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BritCrime's Best Books of 2016: Author @LucyAtkins recommends

Lucy Atkins discovered the brilliant noir novels of Shirley Jackson in 2016

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Always-Castle-Penguin-Modern-Classics/dp/0141191457?tag=brcrws-21

Shirley Jackson was born in California in 1916. When her short story The Lottery was first published in The New Yorker in 1948, readers were so horrified they sent her hate mail; it has since become one of the most iconic American stories of all time. Her first novel, The Road Through the Wall, was published in the same year and was followed by five more: Hangsaman, The Bird's Nest, The Sundial,The Haunting of Hill House and We Have Always Lived in the Castle, widely seen as her masterpiece. In addition to her dark, brilliant novels, she wrote lightly fictionalized magazine pieces about family life with her four children and her husband, the critic Stanley Edgar Hyman. Shirley Jackson died in her sleep in 1965 at the age of 48.

We Have Always Lived in the Castle
by Shirley Jackson
Living in the Blackwood family home with only her sister Constance and her Uncle Julian for company, Merricat just wants to preserve their delicate way of life. But ever since Constance was acquitted of murdering the rest of the family, the world isn't leaving the Blackwoods alone. And when Cousin Charles arrives, armed with overtures of friendship and a desperate need to get into the safe, Merricat must do everything in her power to protect the remaining family.


♠ Recommended by Lucy Atkins, author of The Night Visitor, to be published in 2017
Twitter.com/lucyatkins

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