'GAMBLE' SHORTLISTED FOR THE ENCORE SECOND NOVEL AWARD 2019
rsliterature.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Encore-2019-_Shortlist-Press-Release.pdf
GAMBLE, by Kerry Hadley-Pryce, published by Salt Publishing, June 2018.
Anthony Cartwright: 'Kerry Hadley-Pryce creates an unrelenting portrait of a man's dissolution.'
Isabel Costello's Literary Sofa review: 'It's dark and gripping; sophisticated noir with a dash of the existential.'
Tracey Scott-Townsend: 'Superb writing from an incredible talent.'
‘A harsh, thrilling slap-in-the-face of a novel, reverberating with the violent desires and thwarted dreams of a marriage that is uncoiling before the reader’s eyes. Suspenseful to the very end, the writing is full of willful, original imagery.’ - Nikita Lalwa
rsliterature.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Encore-2019-_Shortlist-Press-Release.pdf
GAMBLE, by Kerry Hadley-Pryce, published by Salt Publishing, June 2018.
Anthony Cartwright: 'Kerry Hadley-Pryce creates an unrelenting portrait of a man's dissolution.'
Isabel Costello's Literary Sofa review: 'It's dark and gripping; sophisticated noir with a dash of the existential.'
Tracey Scott-Townsend: 'Superb writing from an incredible talent.'
‘A harsh, thrilling slap-in-the-face of a novel, reverberating with the violent desires and thwarted dreams of a marriage that is uncoiling before the reader’s eyes. Suspenseful to the very end, the writing is full of willful, original imagery.’ - Nikita Lalwa
THE BLACK COUNTRY: One of the top 10 best debut novels of 2015 'A portrait of a disintegrating marriage, it earned comparisons to Gone Girl, but is nastier and more intriguing than that. If the climax requires one coincidence too many, the slow crescendo of suspense more than compensates.' (THE INDEPENDENT)
Every so often a novel lands from out of nowhere and grabs you by the eyeballs. Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl was one such, but at least Flynn had some previous form. Kerry Hadley-Pryce's haunting and unnerving The Black Country is a debut of gothic ambition. The South China Morning Post
The Black Country is a macabre triumph, whether you read it as a horror fable about love or a meditation on the controlling character of the artist. Either way, this ambitious and memorable first novel loiters like a rotting fish left behind the fridge. I mean this in a good way. The Black Country really is something else. The Independent on Sunday
This is an addictive book that deserves to be up there with the likes of Gone Girl andGirl On The Train it's as good, if not better, than both. A dark and unsettling read that leaves you feeling like a voyeur of a car crash relationship (where you wouldn't look away even if you could), I really enjoyed it - 9/10 stars' Read the entire review from Andrew Angel HERE.
Hadley-Pryce's writing and her handling of her subject are simply masterful here - she plays with our sympathies, holding up the pair in various different guises: the downtrodden, ineffective teacher, the desperate husband, the frustrated wife - while gradually stripping both Harry and Maddie of dignity and revealing their nasty secrets. The dry, judicial tone gradually, oh so gradually, becomes disturbing in itself: who is telling this story? An omniscient narrator? An inquisitor or some sort, we might think but with what agenda? 5 STARS. Click HERE to read the whole review from BLUE BOOK BALLOON
Oh, but this is a deliciously disorienting and disquieting book, a wonderful debut from Kerry Hadley-Pryce. It’s the story of Harry Logue and Maddie Harper, who used to be a couple in love and are still a couple – just about – though it wouldn’t take much to disrupt the fragile equilibrium of their relationship. At their old university tutor’s funeral, the pair meet the dashing/creepy Jonathan Cotard; and, after an incident on the drive home, things will never be the same…WE LOVE THIS BOOK
The Black Country, by Kerry Hadley-Pryce, is a deliciously dark tale of a couple whose lives are falling apart. A discomforting, original and haunting work of fiction. This is a fabulous read. Neverimitate .
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