In Josie and Kelly Braffet gives us a deliciously dark, suspenseful debut novel in the tradi-tion of Patricia Highsmith.

Beautiful, brilliant, and inseparable, Josie and Jack Raeburn live a secluded, anarchic exis-tence in their decaying western Pennsylvania home. The only adult in their lives is their rage-prone father, a physicist, whose erratic behavior finally drives them away. Without moral com-pass to guide them, Jack leads Josie into a menacing world of wealth, wealth, eroticism, and betrayal. His sociopathic tendencies emerge, and soon Josie must decide which is stronger: the love and devo-tion she feels for her brother or her will to survive.

From its opening page to its shocking climax, this contemporary Hansel and Gretel story is compulsively readable and hugely entertaining.

 

KELLY BRAFFET was born in California and has lived in Arizona , western Pennsylvania , Great Britain , and New York . She is a graduate of Sarah Lawrence College and has an MFA in fiction from Columbia University . She lives in Brooklyn , New York .