Melissa Jones

The psychological tension subtly takes hold of the reader and does not let go. This is a wonderful book and it will not disappoint.
The Independent

No ordinary piece of Victoriana . . . Jones (sister of the equally talented Sadie) has taken a novelist's liberties with the life of Henry James's cousin Minny Temple, who died at twenty-four. She was passionate and ambitious . . . in this novel she is given the life she deserved.

The Times

Imagine a man-hater’s dream date: a mother-fixated, child-hating, wife-bashing, school-girl-seducing fiend. There you have Alex, the handsome devil of Sick at Heart.

As Alex warns at the beginning, this attempt at understanding violent men should not be confused with an apology.  In it, the romantic hero has been twisted into a psychotic pen pal – the book is divided into long letters addressed to “my three cruel women” – the mother, the wife and the girlfriend. Through these elegant, spare missives we learn of Alex’s childhood in rural France… the story is grimly compulsive…’
Helen Rumbelow, The Times Metro

A quietly chilling account of the destruction of a family. The story unfolds in the journals of some of the people involved… it’s a difficult technique to employ successfully, but Melissa Jones has brought it off with deceptive ease.
Sunday Telegraph

A dark compelling tale of disintegrating family life. In one sense a story of love triumphant… in another of evil and revenge.
Frances Fyfield

A writer at the top of her craft.
Kirkus reviews