A gripping novel riding on a powerfully modern tragic heroine. A toxic love affair that explores the concept of control and possession within a couple.

In this, her second novel, Sarah Koskievic – editorial producer of “Transfert” (Slate), the 3rd most downloaded podcast in France – delivers a caustic and uncompromising text with a hint of punk modernity that’s reminiscent of Virginie Despentes. A text that grabs you by the collar and doesn’t let go.

A 30-something woman who’s prey to dark thoughts lugs her self-destructive tendencies with her everywhere and squanders her integrity in her love affairs. Hazel – that’s her name – does self-harm and gives herself to men for one-night stands that are like brief, deliberate self-abandonments dispossessing her of her being a little more each time.

Until the day she meets Ian.

The attraction is immediate, irresistible. Moving to the beat of after-hours Paris and nightclub smoking rooms, Hazel and Ian lose themselves in a doomed love affair. Until… the unexpected ending.

In a corrosive, incisive style, Sarah Koskievic presents a tragic heroine who demolishes “good feminist conduct” recommendations – yet still considers herself a feminist. Hazel is as fascinating as she is moving. An intense character, both strong and fragile, who explores our eras’ contradictions with fierce determination.

A short novel; caustic, modern hard-hitting: with a subversive feminism that goes against the grain, à la Virginie Despentes. An X-ray of a toxic love affair all the way to the – unexpected – end.