“Wonderfully oppressive” — Telegraaf

“A gripping, moving, sexy, and utterly unique book that holds you in its spell until the very end. A rollercoaster you’ll never want to get off.” —Halina Reijn, director of Babygirl

“Wonderfully written, exciting and sensual; you sympathize and do not want to let go anymore.” — Igone de Jongh, former principal dancer with the Dutch National Ballet

“How do you walk like yourself when you’ve been forced to be nobody for so long? How do you laugh like yourself, and how do you fall in love like yourself? In this tour-de-force, Jansen mercilessly exposes how love can be as consuming as an addiction, and how forgiving someone else is your own healing. Slowly but surely, such a chilling plot unfolds that the tenderness of the denouement leaves you completely disillusioned.” — Sebastiaan Chabot, writer

“Gaite has a unique voice, both greedy and vulnerable. As a reader, you’d love to crawl into the book to save, help, support, and love the protagonist. A moving and raw debut.”— Splinter Chabot, TV presenter

“I wanted to combine the contrast of that sadness and the simultaneous lightness into a story. It became a story about passion and the boundary between surrender and self-loss. The thought that you can now see inside my head feels like fireworks going off in my stomach; terrifying and dazzling, explosive and luminous all at once.” — interview, ELLE

The Body Is Innocent is a stifling novel about manipulation, passion, and the fine line between submission and the loss of oneself.

When the ambitious Margaret receives the opportunity to dance at The National, a prestigious dance company in New York, she doesn’t hesitate before leaving her life and partner behind in the Netherlands. Her first day is already entirely overwhelming: not just by the intensity of the choreography, but primarily by Olivia, a charismatic and famous choreographer who is twenty years older.

What starts as an infatuation grows into an all-encompassing obsession. Margaret soon finds herself entangled in the delicate balance between desire and power, in which not just Olivia, but also her husband – the artistic leader of The National – play a decisive and ominous part.