Sadie Jones

‘Elegantly atmospheric…Jones is excellent on the English obsession with status. While her denouncement is risky, its abrupt swerve left me breathless’– Daily Mail

‘She knows how to construct a narrative of great emotional power. Her prose is crisp and precise, studded with spiky observations’ – Spectator

‘Masterful, terrifying, dangerous, with an ending that is as uncompromising as the build-up is truthful. The Snakes is as beautifully written as it is dark and honest.’ – Rachel Joyce

‘A breathtaking view of family dysfunction Sadie Jones… shows a craftier way to tackle the city’s division in her menacing new contemporary thriller. The plot zigzags unpredictably to a brutally stark finale that steals the breath. –  Anthony Cummins, Metro

‘I was expecting this to be good. But, I have to tell you, I was awestruck. This is all-consuming from the first page to the devastating final paragraph…What follows is completely gripping: a story of the coruscating effects of money, greed and corruption. It is a stunningly good novel and – I know its only March – I may not read a better this year.’ Alice O’Keeffe, Bookseller ‘Book of the Month’

SADIE JONES is a screenwriter and a #1 Sunday Times bestselling author. Her first novel, The Outcast won the Costa First Novel Award and was shortlisted for the Orange Prize. It was also a Richard and Judy Summer Reads number one bestseller and adapted for BBC Television. Sadie also wrote: Small Wars (2009), The Uninvited Guests (2012) and Fallout (2014). Her fifth novel, The Snakes, was listed as ‘March book of the month’ in The Bookseller.

A new captivating modern classic by Sadie Jones – a morality tale about human nature, money, power and unhappy families.

Bea and Dan, recently married, rent out their tiny flat to escape London for a few precious months. Driving through France they visit Bea’s dropout brother Alex at the hotel he runs in Burgundy. Disturbingly, they find him all alone and the ramshackle hotel deserted, apart from the nest of snakes in the attic.

When Alex and Bea’s parents make a surprise visit, Dan can’t understand why Bea is so appalled, or why she’s never wanted him to know them; Liv and Griff Adamson are charming, and rich. They are the richest people he has ever met. Maybe Bea’s ashamed of him, or maybe she regrets the secrets she’s been keeping.

Tragedy strikes suddenly, brutally, and in its aftermath the family is stripped back to its rotten core, and now neither Bea nor Alex can escape…