Equally worth asking, how fantastic does a relationship need to be to compensate for bad sex? If the coupling is warm and trusting and romantic, does it really matter if the sex is all a bit crap? Elizabeth Haynes is a police intelligence analyst. She started writing fiction in 2006 with the annual challenge of National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) and the encouragement of the creative writing courses at West Dean College. She lives in a village near Maidstone, Kent, with her husband and son. Quite possibly one of the worst things about being the victim of a crime is feeling judged yourself. It’s perfectly natural to think of your own actions and agonize over how you could have prevented the crime, or how, if circumstances were different, you might’ve escaped it altogether. Among the most empowering things, therefore, for a victim of crime to hear, apart from that the perpetrator has been caught, are “You’re not alone” and “It’s not your fault.” Some are fortunate enough to learn that right away, others need a bit more time. But what if you don’t hear that at all? What if the people you trust the most tell you that you are at fault, that in fact, you are lying and not a victim of crime at all? When Catherine Bailey, the heroine of Elizabeth Haynes’ debut novel Into the Darkest Corner, calls herself “such a fool” for not having escaped an abusive relationship with Lee when she had the chance, I wanted to hug her and tell her not to blame herself. When she thinks about how her parents’ death led to her going to bars, flirting with strangers and eventually meeting Lee, I wanted to tell her that it’s useless to dwell on the what if’s, that in fact, her anger should be towards Lee and not towards herself or her past. I wanted to be the friend she so clearly needed. Book Genre: Adult, Contemporary, Crime, Fiction, Mystery, Mystery Thriller, Psychological Thriller, Romance, Suspense, Thriller Like all of the books I tend to crow about, Elizabeth Haynes’ Into the Darkest Corner can spawn any number of juicy conversations.

Into The Darkest Corner by Detailed Review Summary of Into The Darkest Corner by

I wasn't too excited about the beginning of the story because it jumped around from present to the past.Starred Review. A harrowing psychological thriller … A terrifying and convincing portrayal of an abusive relationship and a damaged woman’s heroic attempts to recover from it." - Publishers Weekly urn:lcp:intodarkestcorne0000hayn:epub:00921489-8444-406b-895e-a620b5b29451 Foldoutcount 0 Identifier intodarkestcorne0000hayn Identifier-ark ark:/13960/t5kb0mc5p Invoice 1652 Isbn 9780062197252 The alternating chapters showing Catherine's life leading up to and after a specific event, unravel the story at an excellent pace and felt myself holding my breath in several places as it drew me right in.

Into the Darkest Corner by Elizabeth Haynes | Waterstones Into the Darkest Corner by Elizabeth Haynes | Waterstones

Certainly for me the presence of sex - regardless of the degrees of satisfaction - is a dealbreaker. While I’m sure there are relationships that are are functional - are satisfying - sans sex, I’m not particularly interested in one.

Into the Darkest Corner was the third of my annual ‘Nano’ novels and it was the first one that had something like a proper ending. I wanted to write about how it felt not to be believed, and the story evolved from that idea. Many writers plan their stories carefully before they start, but I have a tendency to get bored and distracted, and my solution to this is to let the story grow as I write it. That way the ending is a surprise to me, and writing about it is exciting and fresh. Of course, it takes much longer to edit than if I’d planned it properly. From its uncompromising prologue – a young woman being bludgeoned to death in a ditch – Haynes’s powerful account of domestic violence is disquieting, yet unsensationalist.”

Into the Darkest Corner: A Literary Feminist Examination in Into the Darkest Corner: A Literary Feminist Examination in

Into the Darkest Corner has two timelines: past and present of Catherine Bailey. Cathy used to be a party girl: going out with friends every weekend, drinking and just having fun... till she met Lee. 4 years later Cathy is not a girl she used to be. She is traumatized, anxious girl with PTSD and OCD. What happened to her during those 4 years?

Catherine Bailey has been enjoying the single life long enough to know a catch when she sees one. Gorgeous, charismatic and spontaneous, Lee seems almost too perfect to be true. And her friends clearly agree, as each in turn falls under his spell.