Taylor Swift's biggest groupie! Singer's rumored beau Matty Healy supports her AGAIN at Philly concert as he opens show Holly Willoughby and Philip Schofield 'call off holidays together' amid their ongoing 'feud' as he fears being axed from This Morning Maura Higgins puts on sporty display as she showcases her washboard stomach on LA hike with friends amid friendship feud with Lucie Dolan ALISON BOSHOFF reveals how actor end up single and struggling for workĮurovision 2023 final LIVE: Mae Muller represents UK with Sweden's Loreen favourite to win as Liverpool comes to life for song contest Inside the Celebrity Old Dads' Club as Robert De Niro becomes a father again aged 79Īs DCI Banks star Stephen Tompkinson is cleared of GBH. Like her debut, the Orange Prize shortlisted Black Water Rising, The Cutting Season is a novel interested in more subtle and complex questions of identity, family and history. But this is not a whodunit for thrill-seekers. Locke exploits her atmospheric setting well, creating some genuinely unnerving moments. When the body of a young woman is found on the grounds with her throat cut, past and present merge uncomfortably.

But Caren, whose slave ancestors once worked the land that surrounds the plantation, needs little reminding that Belle Vie’s wealth came at a bitter price and its beauty is not to be trusted. On the surface Belle Vie is as beautiful as its name suggests¸ all elegant Gone With The Wind columns, balconies and manicured lawns. In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, Caren Grey and her nine-year-old daughter have returned to Belle Vie, the plantation where Caren’s mother once worked as the family cook and where Caren has now found employment as manager of the estate. The traditional country house murder mystery is given a flavour of the Deep South in Attica Locke’s second novel, set on a sugar plantation in Louisiana.

The cutting season a novel