Zelda's Cut [Paperback]

‘Clever, original, perceptive and preposterous… highly enjoyable’
Hampstead & Highgate Gazette

‘Hooks until the final twist’
Woman & Home

‘ZELDA’S CUT holds the attention because the cravings it describes are real’
Helen Dunmore

Delicious combination of confused identities, personal dramas and moral dilemmas in a contemporary chiller from one of our most outstanding novelists.

For years, Isobel Latimer has composed serious novels for serious people, but to dwindling acclaim and ever-more dwindling gain. Now her husband is ill and she must carry their financial burden alone, and in secret.

But if the public don’t want careful moral fables any longer, why not provide an outrageous tale of sex and satanism, and an author to match? The incomparable, uncontrollable Zelda de Vere is born.
What began with the best of intentions snowballs into a disorienting blur of passion, gender-bending, loss of innocence, to betrayal and beyond. Isobel Latimer might feel she’s on the brink of losing everything, but what would Zelda do?

'Desire, Betrayal and Shifting Identity combine in this chilling contemporary novel.'

Isobel Latimer is trapped: by her need to be a good woman, by massive secret debt, and by the burden of impeccable literary reputation. Everyone wants a cut of her talent, her time or her money, but only she knows there's nothing left to give. In desperation, Isobel and her agent, Troy, conspire to create a shameless blockbuster with an author to match. Zelda is born.

Zelda can do everything that Isobel cannot: the unspeakable is said, taboos are broken and desires are unleashed. Troy revels in the wildness, but Isobel senses menace behind the beautiful mask, and she longs for the safety of her husband and home. But when she returns, the familiar has changed…

"'Zelda's Cut' holds the attention because the cravings it describes are real"
HELEN DUNMORE, 'The Times'

"Gregory's extraordinary engrossing novel examines the human capacity for self-deceit, and explores the risks we should take to be our true selves. Audacious in its range… Gregory's skill is masterly… a triumph."
DAILY MAIL

Philippa Gregory is an internationally renowned author of historical novels. She holds a PhD in eighteenth-century literature from the University of Edinburgh. Works that have been adapted for television include A Respectable Trade, The Other Boleyn Girl and The Queen's Fool. The Other Boleyn Girl is now a major film, starring Scarlett Johansson, Natalie Portman and Eric Bana. Philippa Gregory lives in the North of England with her family.