The intoxicating debut novel that everyone is talking about this summer.

'Barkworth is excruciatingly good... An impressive first book' OBSERVER
HEAT magazine's READ OF THE WEEK - 'the evocative one'
'A summer sizzler... with twists, turns and revelations in all the right places' EVENING STANDARD
'Painfully real, and so beautifully written I wanted to stay within its pages forever' CLARE MACKINTOSH
'Stylish and sensual' KIRAN MILLWOOD HARGRAVE

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This summer burns with secrets...

It is too hot to sleep. To work. To be questioned time and again by the police.

At the beginning of a stifling, sultry summer, everything shifts irrevocably when Lily doesn't come home one afternoon.

Rachel is Lily's teacher. Her daughter Mia is Lily's best friend. The girls are fifteen - almost women, still children.

As Rachel becomes increasingly fixated on Lily's absence, she finds herself breaking fragile trusts and confronting impossible choices she never thought she'd face.

It wasn't supposed to happen like this.

Intoxicating and compulsive, Heatstroke is a darkly gripping, thought-provoking novel of crossed boundaries, power and betrayal, that plays with expectations at every turn.

FOR FANS OF ZOE HELLER, EMMA CLINE, EXPECTATION AND MY DARK VANESSA.

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A COSMOPOLITAN BEST NEW BOOKS pick May 2020

'What to read next IF YOU LOVED THREE WOMEN by Lisa Taddeo' WHISTLES newsletter

'A thrilling look at mothers and daughters, adolescence, sex, suburbia and secrets' NELL FRIZZELL

'Sexy, sensual, difficult, provocative...definitely one of the best reads of the summer' LAURA JANE WILLIAMS

'Pulls you into its sweaty interior and keeps you gripped' RENEE KNIGHT

'I couldn't tear myself away' ERIN KELLY

'I am addicted!... A gripping, dark and twisty read with beautiful, poetic writing' EMMA GANNON

'Compulsive, sticky and full of gorgeous writing' KIRSTIN INNES

'A scorching tale of obsession, betrayal and the wounds that mothers and daughters inflict on each other' TAMMY COHEN