Heat

Heat is a gripping and exquisitely-told tale about the dark side of love and the compulsive pull of the past. When Susan Stewart sees her ex-lover in a bookshop on the outskirts of Washington DC, the memories of passion and obsession return. Is Phillip stalking her? Or are her own disturbed emotions turning a long, hot summer into a nightmare that threatens to destroy her, her husband and her young daughter? Susan’s friends say it’s all in her mind but as her unease spirals out of control, it becomes clear that nothing is as it seems and only tragedy can clear the air.

'A story of obsession and love and the difference between the two ... Emerson writes superbly about the dark side of love.' Jane Hardy, Sunday Times

'An intense, disciplined novel of ungovernable forces.' The Times

'In this tense, sensuous novel, Emerson leads her characters away from everything safe and dependable.' Helen Dunmore, The Times

'Quivering with subtle erotic tension and sparkling observation ...' Celia Brayfield, Mail on Sunday

'Permeated with eroticism and danger ... a really gripping book that captures perfectly the seesawing state of mind of its heroine and, most unnervingly, the compulsive pull of a past containing unfinished business.' Gillian Fairchild, Daily Telegraph

'Emerson writes superbly about the dark side of love ... The build up of horror weaves strands, as spiders do, to bring the reader just where she wants.' Sunday Times

'Sally Emerson has done something rather remarkable: in Heat she has restored passion to the serious English novel ... it takes courage and nerve to put passion at the centre of a novel, and to take its companion, obsession, as seriously as Emily Bronte did. Yet that is what Sally Emerson has dared to do: to remove Wuthering Heights from the Yorkshire moors, and place it in a long, hot Washington summer ...' Allan Massie, Scotsman

‘Sally Emerson writes like a dangerous angel.’ Douglas Adams