Into the Darkest Corner

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Writing Style Accounts of torture and death? - very gorey references to deaths/dead bodies and torture This is an edgy and powerful first novel, utterly convincing in its portrayal of obsession, and a tour de force of suspense. L. H. Healy (VINE VOICE)”This is an absolutely fantastic, gripping first novel from Elizabeth Haynes! I just could not put this one down and had to know what would happen next. Utterly compelling from start to finish.” Ron Rash is renowned for his writing about Appalachia, but his latest book, The Caretaker, begins ...

Into the Darkest Corner : A Novel - Google Books Into the Darkest Corner : A Novel - Google Books

Access-restricted-item true Addeddate 2018-12-15 01:18:48 Bookplateleaf 0004 Boxid IA1513306 Camera Sony Alpha-A6300 (Control) Collection_set printdisabled External-identifier Equally worth discussing - and unusual for a crime novel - the book spotlights that hard-to-confront reality that the bloke in her bed is far more likely to be a woman’s real source of threat than any “man in the bushes”. Equally worth asking, how fantastic does a relationship need to be to compensate for bad sex? If the coupling is warm and trusting and romantic, does it really matter if the sex is all a bit crap? Into the Darkest Corner is a difficult book to read, and I mean that as a testament to how amazing it is. Haynes has crafted a terrifying, emotional, claustrophobic story of abuse. My copy (photo on the left) is filed with Post-It notes and marginal scribbles, mostly comments like “Argh! You liar!” referring to Lee. Rarely have I marked up a book so much — Darkest Corner has provoked that much from me. On one level, it raises some really worthwhile conversations about consent. The crazy boyfriend turns up at 3am and Catherine opens her door to him. They have sex, it was rough, she was in pain during - and afterwards - and at no point did she say no. Was it rape?Even when Catherine was really in love with Lee, I never found him attractive. There was a major red flag from the beginning — Lee’s secrecy about his job — though I guess I could see how that would have a dark, brooding stranger type appeal. I do wish I saw a bit more of Lee’s charming side, just so I can understand how Catherine could have fallen so hard, and how her friends could have been so won over. Catherine is an outgoing and confident woman, enjoying her weekends going out on the town with her friends, meeting guys and having fun. Then she meets Lee, a gorgeous and charming man who her friends all love. A few years later we meet Catherine again. Single, she has no friends, and her life is consumed by OCD and anxiety. What has happened to her?⁣ Lccn 2011431293 Ocr tesseract 5.0.0-alpha-20201231-10-g1236 Ocr_detected_lang en Ocr_detected_lang_conf 1.0000 Ocr_detected_script Latin Ocr_detected_script_conf 0.9760 Ocr_module_version 0.0.13 Ocr_parameters -l eng Old_pallet IA-WL-2000040 Openlibrary_edition I wasn't too excited about the beginning of the story because it jumped around from present to the past.

Into the Darkest Corner – HarperCollins Into the Darkest Corner – HarperCollins

But what begins as flattering attentiveness and passionate sex turns into raging jealousy, and Catherine soon learns there is a darker side to Lee. His increasingly erratic, controlling behaviour becomes frightening, but no one believes her when she shares her fears. Increasingly isolated and driven into the darkest corner of her world, a desperate Catherine plans a meticulous escape. Starred Review. A harrowing psychological thriller … A terrifying and convincing portrayal of an abusive relationship and a damaged woman’s heroic attempts to recover from it." - Publishers Weekly

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For me, if the relationship is bad - if there’s no trust or if outside of the bedroom it all feels strained and lonely - then for me good sex means little. Into The Darkest Corner is the first novel by British author, Elizabeth Haynes. In 2003, personnel manager Catherine Bailey is confident and carefree, with a full but somewhat risky social life that involves copious drinking and sexual promiscuity. In 2007, Cathy Bailey is frightened and withdrawn, crippled by the OCD rituals she follows to keep her emotions under control, to keep the fear and panic at bay. Lccn 2012371019 Ocr_converted abbyy-to-hocr 1.1.20 Ocr_module_version 0.0.17 Old_pallet IA14541 Openlibrary_edition From its uncompromising prologue – a young woman being bludgeoned to death in a ditch – Haynes’s powerful account of domestic violence is disquieting, yet unsensationalist.” In October 2003, Cathy meets a somewhat mysterious but totally gorgeous man named Lee. He’s closed-mouthed about his job, but charms her friends, and as she gets involved with this enigmatic figure, a man who can be loving and vulnerable, but also rough and controlling, her life changes in major ways.

Into the Darkest Corner: A Literary Feminist Examination in Into the Darkest Corner: A Literary Feminist Examination in

Quite possibly one of the worst things about being the victim of a crime is feeling judged yourself. It’s perfectly natural to think of your own actions and agonize over how you could have prevented the crime, or how, if circumstances were different, you might’ve escaped it altogether. Among the most empowering things, therefore, for a victim of crime to hear, apart from that the perpetrator has been caught, are “You’re not alone” and “It’s not your fault.” Some are fortunate enough to learn that right away, others need a bit more time. But what if you don’t hear that at all? What if the people you trust the most tell you that you are at fault, that in fact, you are lying and not a victim of crime at all? When Catherine Bailey, the heroine of Elizabeth Haynes’ debut novel Into the Darkest Corner, calls herself “such a fool” for not having escaped an abusive relationship with Lee when she had the chance, I wanted to hug her and tell her not to blame herself. When she thinks about how her parents’ death led to her going to bars, flirting with strangers and eventually meeting Lee, I wanted to tell her that it’s useless to dwell on the what if’s, that in fact, her anger should be towards Lee and not towards herself or her past. I wanted to be the friend she so clearly needed. Certainly for me the presence of sex - regardless of the degrees of satisfaction - is a dealbreaker. While I’m sure there are relationships that are are functional - are satisfying - sans sex, I’m not particularly interested in one. In contrast to Lee is Stuart, Catherine’s neighbour in 2007, who is a psychologist and who wants to help her deal with her OCD. I was initially put off when he tells her she has OCD and asks if she’s gotten any help for it. I knew he was trying to be helpful, but I also wanted her to tell him it was none of his business. Still, she does need help, and I like how Haynes balances out Catherine’s wariness of Stuart with her desire to get better. Stuart gradually grew on me — I love how, despite his attraction to Catherine, he is first and foremost a friend. I kept wishing that he wouldn’t turn out to have some hidden agenda, that he really is as nice a guy as he seems. Lee is such a horrible, manipulative person, and the way he destroys Catherine is painstakingly, painfully methodical. Because Catherine’s relationship with Stuart unfolds in the book alongside her experiences with Lee, it is difficult to allow ourselves to trust Stuart, just as it must have been for Catherine as well. Suddenly what initially looks like commitment seems smothering; the sex that once felt all new and exciting and spontaneous feels a whole lot like rape. A debate Catherine has with herself during an early split with Lee is whether the sex - sex she considered, at least initially, as great - was grounds for reconciliation. For perseverance.Darkest Corner has been compared to S.J. Watson’s Before I Go to Sleep. Watson even blurbs Darkest Corner, calling it “intense, gripping and utterly unputdownable.” I am a huge fan of Before I Go to Sleep— I found it, quite literally, “unputdownable,” and it kept me up all night. Its premise of not knowing who you really area is terrifying. The alternating chapters showing Catherine's life leading up to and after a specific event, unravel the story at an excellent pace and felt myself holding my breath in several places as it drew me right in.

Into the darkest corner : Haynes, Elizabeth, 1971- : Free Into the darkest corner : Haynes, Elizabeth, 1971- : Free

I have rarely detested a character as much as I do Lee. He’s just creepy and controlling. For example, he switches around the knives and forks in Catherine’s kitchen drawer. When Catherine demands to know why he did it, he replies, “I just wanted you to know I was looking out for you.” Catherine admits she feels uncomfortable without knowing why, and that was one point when I wanted to just yell at her — how can you not know why that creeps you out? Talk about the heebie-jeebies! To Catherine’s credit, she does ask him not to do it again instead of just letting it alone.

Inspiration

Elizabeth Haynes is a police intelligence analyst. She started writing fiction in 2006 with the annual challenge of National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) and the encouragement of the creative writing courses at West Dean College. She lives in a village near Maidstone, Kent, with her husband and son. Into the Darkest Corner has two timelines: past and present of Catherine Bailey. Cathy used to be a party girl: going out with friends every weekend, drinking and just having fun... till she met Lee. 4 years later Cathy is not a girl she used to be. She is traumatized, anxious girl with PTSD and OCD. What happened to her during those 4 years? Like all of the books I tend to crow about, Elizabeth Haynes’ Into the Darkest Corner can spawn any number of juicy conversations. urn:lcp:intodarkestcorne0000hayn:epub:00921489-8444-406b-895e-a620b5b29451 Foldoutcount 0 Identifier intodarkestcorne0000hayn Identifier-ark ark:/13960/t5kb0mc5p Invoice 1652 Isbn 9780062197252