LIONESS : the bold new novel from the women's prize longlisted author of the forrests

'Perkins is an extraordinary writer' —The Sunday TimesYou know how we say we devoured a story, & also that we were consumed by it? Eating & being eaten. It was like that with Claire, for me.From humble beginnings, Therese has let herself grow used to a life of luxury after marrying into an empire-building family. But when rumours of corruption gather around her husband's latest development, the social opprobrium is shocking, the fallout swift, & Therese begins to look at her privileged & insular world with new eyes.In the flat below Therese, something else is brewing. Her neighbour Claire believes she's discovered the secret to living with freedom & authenticity, freeing herself from the mundanity of domesticity. Therese finds herself enchanted by the lure of the permissive zone Claire creates in her apartment - a place of ecstatic release.All too quickly, Therese is forced to confront herself & her choices - just how did she become this person? And what exactly should she do about it?°°°“Novel of the year. To be perfectly honest I felt this was going to be the case from the opening few pages – here is a writer at her confident best, fluent & funny, direct & engaging, wasting no time with a sex scene, a backstory, a hotel room, a real estate deal, talk of flagship stores & boutique lines, a life lived luxuriously: “There would be crab & silver and white linen.” And it just kept going at that same pace, skillfully & satirically, with lots more sex. She got under the skin of a certain kind of New Zealand (holiday homes, a trophy wife, spoiled trustfund brats) & peeled it back with malicious pleasure.... Lioness wrestles with questions of authenticity & meaning, particularly for upper-middle-class women. Put your foot through the facade of your Chelsea Winter life, & what will you find?” — Steve Braunias, Selected as one of the 10 best works of fiction @ Newsroom.co.nz 'The most exciting novel I've read in ages... I gulped it down, so readable, so EXCELLENT about people. Read it' Marian Keyes 'This novel is perfection' Glamour 'A coolly ironic look at modern womanhood... This is an excellent novel' The Times You know how we say we devoured a story, and also that we were consumed by it? Eating and being eaten. It was like that with Claire, for me. From humble beginnings, Therese has let herself grow used to a life of luxury after marrying into an empire-building family. But when rumours of corruption gather around her husband's latest development, the social opprobrium is shocking, the fallout swift, and Therese begins to look at her privileged and insular world with new eyes. In the flat below Therese, something else is brewing. Her neighbour Claire believes she's discovered the secret to living with freedom and authenticity, freeing herself from the mundanity of domesticity. Therese finds herself enchanted by the lure of the permissive zone Claire creates in her apartment – a place of ecstatic release. All too quickly, Therese is forced to confront herself and her choices – just how did she become this person? And what exactly should she do about it? 'A thoughtful, intelligent novel about one woman's search for more meaning' Good Housekeeping 'Perkins is an extraordinary writer' The Sunday Times You know how we say we devoured a story, and also that we were consumed by it? Eating and being eaten. It was like that with Claire, for me. From humble beginnings, Therese has let herself grow used to a life of luxury after marrying into an empire-building family. But when rumours of corruption gather around her husband's latest development, the social opprobrium is shocking, the fallout swift, and Therese begins to look at her privileged and insular world with new eyes. In the flat below Therese, something else is brewing. Her neighbour Claire believes she's discovered the secret to living with freedom and authenticity, freeing herself from the mundanity of domesticity. Therese finds herself enchanted by the lure of the permissive zone Claire creates in her apartment - a place of ecstatic release. All too quickly, Therese is forced to confront herself and her choices - just how did she become this person? And what exactly should she do about it?