From Darkness to Dawn

Description:

A dual-narrative psychological thriller about coercive control, financial abuse, and the long art of beginning again. Perfect for readers of B A Paris, Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen, and Elizabeth Gilbert. At sixty, Julia thought she knew herself. A respected English anthropologist with a quiet, settled life, she had stopped expecting anyone new. Then Robert walked into her world: American, charming, attentive, the kind of man who notices everything. Within five years he has emptied her trusts, drained her savings, and walked out of her life with the contents of their joint accounts intact. The judge declines to read all the evidence. Her lawyers want the case closed. Robert simply moves on to the next woman, and the next. What follows is the longer story. Julia begins the slow, often invisible work of putting herself back together: with her friend Anna, in her neighbour Mark’s quiet generosity, under the steady eye of Edward, the clinical psychologist who refuses to let her give up, and finally in the heat and noise of Udaipur and Goa, where she rediscovers a self she had forgotten how to look for. But Robert is still moving. The reader knows what Julia does not: that he has already chosen his next victim, and that what happened to Julia is only one chapter in a much longer pattern. From Darkness to Dawn is structured as two parallel narratives, Julia’s recovery from one of the worst years of her life, and Robert’s continuing pursuit of women who can be made to disappear, until the two timelines meet again in a way that closes the book and leaves it open at the same time. Written under pseudonyms by a UK clinical psychologist and a former journalist, drawing on professional experience of coercive control, financial abuse, and what real recovery looks like. For readers who want a thriller with a soul, this is the one.

subjects: Psychological fiction,  Coercive control,  Domestic abuse,  Financial abuse,  Thrillers,  Recovery

Places: England,  Udaipur,  Goa,  India

Times: In the early 2020s