THE WRITING RETREAT

by Julia Bartz (Magpie £16.99, 320 pp)

FrOM the very first sentence, the author is pushing the boundaries of bad language, bad taste, weird sex and overthe-top psychological intrigue. But Julia Bartz still manages to pull off a surprisingly gripping read.

We meet alex, an aspiring writer, just before she wins a place at a prestigious writing retreat run by her idol roza vallo, a famous feminist horror writer, on her estate in the adirondacks. alex decides to go even though a former close friend, Wren, will be there. The other women on the course also come with several varieties of emotional baggage.

The writing is terrific on the ambitions and neuroses that drive most writers, but nothing prepares you for the terrifying rollercoaster of a plot, and Bartz isn’t frightened of being shocking right until the final page.