Looker

Confronting and invigorating, a fine portrait of a psyche on the edge . . . although there's plenty of room for beauty in the writing, the quick-fire structure ramps up the pace, and there is an exciting precision and perceptiveness at work * New Zealand Listener * By the end you'll be gasping * People * Sims's debut is a breathless and unrelenting portrait of one woman's unraveling -- Greer Hendricks, co-author of THE WIFE BETWEEN US A dark and stylish drama featuring a self-aware yet unstable narrator * Booklist * This intense, gripping first novel from Laura Sims shoehorns us into a gathering disquiet and sense of dread, heightened at every turn by our sympathetic understanding of her relentlessly unraveling protagonist. The precise, observant writing slips through the skin without ever calling attention to itself -- Peter Straub, author of A Dark Matter and Interior Darkness With an agile precision reminiscent of Lydia Davis, Laura Sims captures the obsessiveness of a woman who unravels after the collapse of her marriage. A taut, gripping portrait, all the more sinister for its elegance -- Leni Zumas, author of RED CLOCKS Jealousy rears its ugly head in Sims's chilling and riveting debut. In this tightly plotted novel, Sims takes the reader fully into the mind of a woman becoming increasingly unhinged, and turns her emotionally fraught journey into a provocative tale about the dangers of coveting what belongs to another * Publishers Weekly, starred review * Looker is a powerful sylph of a book about creation and destruction and the permeable boundary between them * LitHub * A sugarcoated poison pill of psychological terror * Wall Street Journal * Ephemeral fiction with a hard landing - like a window, seen in passing, that glows and goes dark * New Yorker * In prose that moves between lyrical and caterwauling, the poet Laura Sims has pulled off the high-wire act of making bitterness delicious * Vogue * Unsettling and compelling -- Tammy Cohen A simmering sense of dread dominates this brilliant Brooklyn-set debut . . . dazzlingly creepy storytelling, reminiscent of NOTES ON A SCANDAL. Will leave you checking your curtains at night, but this is an utterly absorbing read * Grazia *