A chilling spin on girl-meets-boy, in which jealousy and obsession cost the ultimate price...

'I just loved it - it truly wedged itself into my brain. Absolutely vile and brilliant. Plaything is an unhinged melody, and it will serenade fans of the darkest narratives.' ALICE SLATER, author of Death of a Bookseller

'A gloriously tense tale of obsession' Financial Times

Anna is smart. Smarter than you, probably. But when she falls for the beautiful, enigmatic Caden, her need to get under his skin, to truly know him becomes overpowering.

Anna's new life in Cambridge is full of promise - she's the top student in her PhD cohort, she has great friends and she has met an exhaustingly attractive man - but something is a little off. Perhaps it's the routine violence of her lab work with animals, or maybe it's something to do with her boyfriend's icy reserve but it seems there is a kind of menace hiding beneath the Cambridge dream.

When Anna and Caden's lives become tightly entangled, her obsession with Caden's seemingly ever-present ex-girlfriend reaches a dangerous pitch... Just how far will she go to satiate her curiosity?

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FROM THE REVIEWS FOR BEA SETTON'S BERLIN

'Terrific . . . an unsettling and compelling read' Observer

'I was completely absorbed' FRANCESCA REECE, author of Voyeur

'Compelling, raw and thrillingly strange' MONA AWAD, author of Bunny

'Cinematically vivid, and refreshingly honest' LISA HALLIDAY, author of Asymmetry