You Let Me In

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What to expect

Brought to you by Penguin.

Eccentric, infamous and exceedingly wealthy, the romantic novelist Cassandra Tipp has, it seems, vanished.
In her large, rambling house sits a pile of paper addressed to her niece and nephew. It is a letter. Cassie has been a murder suspect twice in her life. Her family have long been convinced of her guilt. Could the letter be her confession? Or might it be her last will and testament? It turns out to be not quite what anyone expected . . .

Instead of any indication of remorse, the letter tells two extraordinary and darkly disturbing stories. One is of their aunt’s life-long relationship with a creature called Pepper-Man - a tale of bloody nights and magical gifts, of children lost to the woods, of husbands made from twigs and leaves and sticks and stones. The other story is that of an abused little girl growing crooked in the shadows. Which story should the niece and nephew believe? And where is Cassie now? Dead in a ditch, or gone from this world . . . and into another?

You Let Me In is at once the tale of a faerie seduction and a story about an abused child. Crossing the boundaries between magic and reality, we are shown our world, judgemental and cruel, and offered glimpses of another, dark and very different place that is hidden to most of us. Both stories might be true. Both stories end in murder . . .

© Camilla Bruce 2020 (P) Penguin Audio 2020

Critics Review

  • This might be the best book I’ve read all year . . . creepy, pagan, detailed, entrancing. I loved it.

    JOANNE HARRIS, author of Chocolat and The Strawberry Thief
  • Smart, creepy . . . glittering and menacing . . . deliciously terrifying.

    GUARDIAN
  • Exploring the darker side of fairytales, it inhabits that liminal space where folklore and horror collide. A worrying tale where reality is filtered through the unreal, and the rational rubs shoulders with the supernatural, this is a beguiling story of love and revenge.

    LUCIE McKNIGHT HARDY, author of Water Shall Refuse Them
  • Bruce’s spooky novel is lascivious and bloody, a tale of sexual awakening and dark desires that wreathes its leafy tendrils seductively around you, then tightens them until they start to strangle.

    FINANCIAL TIMES
  • Dark and immersive; a feast of storytelling that lingers long after the last morsel’s been consumed.

    SAM LLOYD, author of The Memory Wood

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