2023 debut
A01=Sarah Thomas
Author_Sarah Thomas
Category=FBA
eq_bestseller
eq_fiction
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_modern-contemporary
eq_nobargain
Gazprom
holiday novel
holiday read
le Carre
Leila Slimani
literary thriller
Litvinenko
Lullaby
oligarch
Putin
Russia
Russian
Slimani
summer read
super-rich
Tara Isabella Burton
thriller
Triangle of Sadness
White Lotus
Product details
- ISBN 9781800816008
- Weight: 280g
- Dimensions: 134 x 214mm
- Publication Date: 16 Feb 2023
- Publisher: Profile Books Ltd
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Paperback
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'A superb debut novel... Anyone who enjoyed The White Lotus will love Thomas's scalpel-sharp skewering of the mores and idiocies of the idle rich' Observer'
'A classy thriller that will appeal to fans of Leila Slimani's Lullaby . . . A hot holiday read to brighten up the last few weeks of winter' Sunday Times
Queen K is as compulsive as a Netflix binge, but it also asks timely questions about status and what constitutes a dignified life' Sheena Patel, Guardian
'Balzac in Balenciaga... Queen K lures you in with escapist, beach-read vibes, then bares its teeth with a devastating portrait of the emotional cost of greed' Times
'Patricia Highsmith-esque ... an untrustworthy narrator judging her employer's life of excess and desperate attempts to infiltrate a glittering world' Evening Standard, 'The Debuts You'll Love in 2023'
'A dark and brilliant read . . . our bet is that this is going to be on the small or big screen' Glamour
On a balmy evening in late March, an oligarch's wife hosts a party on a superyacht moored in the Maldives. Tables cover the massive deck, adorned with orchids, champagne bottles, name cards of celebrities. Uniformed staff flank a red carpet on the landing dock. This is what Kata has wanted for a long time: acceptance into the glittering world of high society. But there are those who aim to come between Kata and her goal, and they are closer to home than she could have imagined.
Witness to the corruption and violence underneath the shiny surfaces is Mel, a young English woman employed to tutor Kata's precocious daughter and navigate her through the class codes of English privilege. Now the closest Mel gets to such privilege is as hired help to the wealthy, and she is deeply resentful.
Exquisitely written and deliciously unreliable, Queen K takes the reader to some of the most luxurious places in the world. But a dark refrain sounds from the very beginning of the story and grows towards its operatic finale: a novel about insatiable material desire can only ever be a tragedy.
'A world of butter-cream-beige luxury, brimming with toxicity and darkness, that pulls you in, and under' Calla Henkel, author of Other People's Clothes
Sarah Thomas worked for years as a private tutor to the super-rich. She lives in London and this is her first novel.
