Objects of Desire

Jess is meant to protect children but she has a dark secret, and someone knows what it is. Someone who kills. Almost everyone around her is suspect, even the girl who claims to be her abandoned daughter. When two more children disappear, Jess finds herself in a losing race to find the culprit before she too becomes a victim. Only one person is on her side, the mysterious female detective whose interest in her is more than professional, and time is running out.

’Objects of Desire drew me in from the very first sentence. It’s beautifully written and remarkably assured for a first novel. It’s stark, contemporary modern gothic with a plot like a nest of seething vipers. On the evidence here, CJ is already a highly impressive and immensely readable crime novelist. if this is what she delivers with her first book, heaven only knows what she’s got in store for us.’

Andrew Taylor, author of The American Boy

‘An accomplished and interesting debut… This clever and disquieting novel shows Ms Emerson to be a writer to watch.’

Sunday Telegraph