Book excerpt: A SUNDAY TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR SELECTED FOR MALALA'S BOOK CLUB 'Tender, devastating, witty. And deeply true. Sweetbitter meets Normal People' MEG MASON, author of SORROW AND BLISS 'Haunting and bleakly compelling ... A writer of promise' SUNDAY TIMES 'An absorbing debut about sex and power' GUARDIAN 'Elegant and witty ... A precursor to great things' THE TIMES 'One of the buzziest debut novels this spring' VOGUE CHOSEN AS A BOOK OF 2022 BY VOGUE AND ESQUIRE _____________________________________________________________________________ A bitingly honest, darkly funny debut about love, sex, power and desire, by a major new British talent Anna is struggling to afford life in London as she trains to be a singer. During the day, she vies to succeed against her course mates with their discreet but inexhaustible streams of cultural capital and money, and in the evening she sings jazz at a bar in the City to make ends meet. It's there that she meets Max, a financier fourteen years older than her. Over the course of one winter, Anna's intoxication oscillates between her hard-won moments on stage, where she can zip herself into the skin of her characters, and nights spent with Max in his glass-walled flat overlooking the city. But Anna's fledgling career demands her undivided attention, and increasingly – whether he necessarily wills it or not – so does Max... _____________________________________________________________________________ 'Touching on feminism, power, finances and the pleasures and dangers of a new relationship, this book is an assured debut' CLAIRE FULLER, author of the Women's Prize-shortlisted UNSETTLED GROUND 'Imogen Crimp captures the glittering thrill of being young and choosing your own life with a dark, unflinching undercurrent of desire, power and control' JESSICA ANDREWS, author of SALTWATER 'A blazing, darkly funny debut that captures a young woman's search to find herself ... It has an honesty and tenderness that will stay with me for a long time' RACHEL JOYCE