A widowed writer begins to work on a biography of a novelist and artist—and soon uncovers bizarre parallels between her life and her subject’s—in this chilling and singularly strange novella by a contemporary master of horror and fantasy.

The narrator of Lisa Tuttle’s uncanny novella is a recent widow, a writer adrift. Not only has she lost her husband but her muse seems to have deserted her altogether. Her agent summons her to Edinburgh to discuss her next book. What will she tell him? At once the answer comes to her: she will write the biography of Helen Ralston, best known, if at all, as the subject of W.E. Logan’s much-reproduced painting Circe, and the inspiration for his classic children’s book, Hermine in Cloud-Land.

But Ralston was a novelist and artist in her own right, though her writing is no longer in print and her most radical painting, My Death, deemed too unsettling—malevolent even—to be shown in public. Over the months that follow, Ralston proves an astonishingly cooperative subject, even as her biographer uncovers eerie resonances between the older woman’s history and her own. Whose biography is she writing—really?

'A twisty and engrossing thriller that will keep you guessing until the very end.' Karin Slaughter, International Bestselling Author Humiliated by a man who held her career in his hands, Dana Diaz's life and reputation are in tatters. Drowning her sorrows one night in a bar, she gets talking to a stranger, Amanda - and finds that she, too, has a story to tell. Over a drink, Amanda proposes a plan: The women should take revenge on each other's behalf. Stalking and tormenting the people that wronged them carries a thrill - and one act of revenge soon leads to another. But while this may be an addictive game for two, only one can survive. WHO WILL BE THE LAST WOMAN STANDING? Readers love Last Woman Standing: 'This book blew me away' Cosy Cat Reviews 'A fantastic read' Rachel 'What a page turner!' Jane 'I highly recommend Last Woman Standing ... This novel does not disappoint ... FIVE-STAR' D.B. Moone 'Timely and suspenseful' Ray J. 'A unique story ... This one will stick with me' Courtney 'A riveting page turner you'll stay up way too late to finish' SW

It's hard to think of a solo female recording artist who has been as revered or as reviled over the course of her career as Tori Amos. Amy Gentry argues that these violent aesthetic responses to Amos's performance, both positive and negative, are organized around disgust-the disgust that women are taught to feel, not only for their own bodies, but for their taste in music. Released in 1996, Amos's third album, Boys for Pele, represents the height of Amos's willingness to explore the ugly qualities that make all of her music, even her more conventionally beautiful albums, so uncomfortably, and so wonderfully, strange. Using a blend of memoir, criticism, and aesthetic theory, Gentry argues that the aesthetics of disgust are useful for thinking in a broader way about women's experience of all art forms.