Dance With Me
First published by Simon & Schuster UK in 1996.
Bet has known Peter for only a month when he is killed in a car accident. Then she discovers that a week before he died, he re-wrote his will, leaving everything to her. Why would he leave everything to a woman he hardly knows? And why are his friends so keen to get access to his papers?
‘Dance With Me is a book dotted with vivid observational set pieces, cunningly slotted together…Doughty is a good writer, deft with observational details…This book does dance with you. It holds you, leads you, and twirls you about.’
Lynne Truss, Sunday Times
‘A compelling novel about madness and dissociation…intriguing, cunningly wrought and atmospheric.’
Independent on Sunday
‘The reader becomes engaged in the disorientating twists of a psychological thriller…these build up with nailbiting tension to a bravura climax…above all, her creation of highly believable and likeable female characters seems to come as naturally as breathing.’
The Sunday Telegraph
‘In this tricky, odd and very funny novel, it is hard to tell what is real and what is virtual reality but it does not matter much. Delivering up solid facts is not Louise Doughty’s style: she is a player of slippery, literary games and a superb tease…her observations of women’s lives are breathtakingly original.’
The Times
‘I loved this book, which is a thriller, a bit of a ghost story, and a love story. It has pace, style, mystery, excitement…If you haven’t got the Louise Doughty habit, get it now. She’s the tops.’
Evening Standard
‘Louise Doughty is a charmer…Dance With Me is a hugely chewable, memorable and loveable tale and deservers to be as successful as its predecessor.’
Time Out
‘Louise Doughty writes about people who don’t usually get written about…every bit as skilled as her contemporaries, her writing has a pessimistic edge which makes her books all the funnier. Dance With Me is a painfully accurate record of mating rituals and dating nightmares.’
Independent