Koren Zailckas – författare

An electrifying debut novel about what happens when the one who should love you the most becomes your worst enemy. Sure to appeal to fans of GONE GIRL and WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVINMeet the Hurst Family.Meet Violet Hurst -16 years old, beautiful and brilliant. So why is she being accused of being a danger to herself and others?Meet her brother Will Hurst – the smartest and sweetest twelve-year old boy around. But does he really need all that medication he is being told to take?Meet oldest sister Rose – the one who got away. She disappeared one night in her final year of school, never to be heard from again.

An electrifying debut novel about what happens when the one who should love you the most becomes your worst enemy. Sure to appeal to fans of GONE GIRL, WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN and ROOMMeet the Hurst Family.Meet Violet Hurst -16 years old, beautiful and brilliant. So why is she being accused of being a danger to herself and others?Meet her brother Will Hurst – the smartest and sweetest twelve-year old boy around. But does he really need all that medication he is being told to take?Meet oldest sister Rose – the one who got away. She disappeared one night in her final year of school, never to be heard from again.And then meet their mother – Josephine. Perhaps it will then all start to make sense…

FREE SAMPLER. An electrifying debut novel about what happens when the one who should love you the most becomes your worst enemy. Sure to appeal to fans of GONE GIRL, WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN and ROOMMeet the Hurst Family.Meet Violet Hurst -16 years old, beautiful and brilliant. So why is she being accused of being a danger to herself and others?Meet her brother Will Hurst – the smartest and sweetest twelve-year old boy around. But does he really need all that medication he is being told to take?Meet oldest sister Rose – the one who got away. She disappeared one night in her final year of school, never to be heard from again.And then meet their mother – Josephine. Perhaps it will then all start to make sense.An electrifying debut novel about a mother''s love gone too far

From the Sunday Times No. 1 bestselling author of The Girls Who Disappeared One lied. One died.THE SISTERSOne lied. One died.After a tragic accident, still haunted by her twin sister’s death, Abi is making a fresh start in Bath. But when she meets siblings Bea and Ben, she is quickly drawn into their privileged and unsettling circle.When one sister lies, she must protect her secret at all costs.As Abi tries to keep up with the demands of her fickle friends, strange things start to happen – precious letters go missing and threatening messages are left in her room. Is this the work of the beautiful and capricious Bea? Or is Abi willing to go to any lengths to get attention?When the truth outs, will either sister survive?MOTHER, MOTHERMeet the Hurst Family.Meet Violet Hurst -16 years old, beautiful and brilliant. So why is she being accused of being a danger to herself and others?Meet her brother Will Hurst – the smartest and sweetest twelve-year old boy around. But does he really need all that medication he is being told to take?Meet oldest sister Rose – the one who got away. She disappeared one night in her final year of school, never to be heard from again.DARK ROOMSThe first time I saw my sister after she died was at the Fourth of July party. I felt someone behind me and my flesh started prickling. My skin recognized her before I did, rippling once then tightening on my bones.My sister, Nica.Grace spent her teenage years playing catch-up with her younger but cooler sister, Nica. Chasing and yet never quite catching up. So when Nica is murdered, Grace is cast adrift until it becomes clear to her that she must track down her sister’s killer – and in doing so, uncover the secrets she never knew her sister kept.

From Koren Zailckas, author of the iconic memoir SMASHED: an electrifying debut novel about a family being torn apart by the woman who claims to love them most Josephine Hurst has her family under control. With two beautiful daughters, a brilliantly intelligent son, a tech-guru of a husband, and a historical landmark home, her life is picture perfect. But living in this matriarch’s determinedly cheerful, yet subtly controlling domain hasn’t been easy for her family, and when her oldest daughter, Rose, runs off with a mysterious boyfriend, Josephine tightens her grip, gradually turning her flawless home into a darker sort of prison. Resentful of her sister’s newfound freedom, Violet turns to eastern philosophy, hallucinogenic drugs, and extreme fasting, eventually landing herself in a psych ward. Meanwhile, her brother, Will, recently diagnosed with Asperger''s, shrinks further into a world of self-doubt. Their father, Douglas, finds resolve in the bottom of a bottle—an addict craving his own chance to escape. Josephine struggles to maintain the family’s impeccable façade, but when a violent incident leads to a visit from child protective services, the truth about the Hursts might finally be revealed.Now with Extra Libris material, including a reader’s guide and bonus content

By the New York Times bestselling author of Mother, Mother and Smashed comes a propulsive new thriller: the story of a desperate and devious woman who will do anything to give her family a better life Gracie Mueller is a proud mother of two and devoted wife, living with her husband Randy in upstate New York. Her life is complicated by the usual tedium and stressors—young children, marriage, money—and she’s settled down comfortably enough. But when Randy’s failing career as a real estate agent makes finances tight, their home goes into foreclosure, and Gracie feels she has no choice but to return to the creatively illegal and high-stakes lifestyle of her past in order to keep all that she’s worked so hard to have. Gracie, underneath all that’s marked her life as average, has a lot to hide about where she’s from, who she is, and who she’s been. And when things inevitably begin to spin out of her control, more questions about the truth of her past are raised, including all the ones she never meant to, or even knew to, ask.    Written with the style, energy, and penetrating insight that made her memoir Smashed a phenomenon, Koren Zailckas's next novel confirms her growing reputation as a psychological novelist that can stand up to the best of them.

By the New York Times bestselling author of Mother, Mother and Smashed, a propulsive new thriller featuring a devious and unreliable narrator who will do anything to give her family a better life Gracie Mueller is a proud mother of two and devoted wife, living with her husband Randy in upstate New York, her life complicated by the usual stressors and tedium—young children, marriage, money—and she’s settled down comfortably enough. But Gracie, underneath all that’s marked her life as average, has a lot to hide about where she’s from, who she is, and who she’s been. And when Randy’s failing career as a real estate agent makes finances tight, their home goes into foreclosure, and Gracie feels she has no choice but to return to the creatively illegal and high-stakes lifestyle of her past in order to keep all that she’s worked so hard to have.   Gracie learned from her manipulatively charming father how to steal identities in order to survive, and she eases back into her routine of lying and cheating with a wicked skillset and gritty resolve. Things begin to slip out of her control, though, when her web of deceit lands her a job as a private school drama teacher--a role that demands emotional honesty--and soon more questions about the truth of her past are raised, including all the ones she never meant to, or even knew to, ask.   Written with the style, energy, and penetrating insight that made her memoir Smashed a bestselling phenomenon, Koren Zailckas''s next novel confirms her growing reputation as a psychological novelist that can stand up to the best of them.

Read Koren Zailckas''s blogs and other content on the Penguin Community.

The author of the iconic New York Times bestseller Smashed undertakes a quest to confront her own anger. In the years following the publication of her landmark memoir, Smashed: Story of a Drunken Girlhood, Koren Zailckas stays sober and relegates binge drinking to her past. But a psychological legacy of repression lingers-her sobriety is a loose surface layer atop a hard- packed, unacknowledged rage that wreaks havoc on Koren emotionally and professionally. When a failed relationship leads Koren back to her childhood home, she sinks into emotional crisis-writer''s block, depression, anxiety. Only when she begins to apply her research on a book about anger to the turmoil of her own life does she learn what denial has cost her. The result is a blisteringly honest chronicle of the consequences of anger displaced and the balm of anger discovered. Readers who recognized themselves or someone they love in the pages of Smashed will identify with Koren''s life-altering exploration and the necessity of exposing anger''s origins in order to flourish in love and life as an adult. Combining sophisticated sociological research with a dramatic and deeply personal story that grapples boldly with identity and family, Fury is a dazzling work by a young writer at the height of her powers that is certain to touch a cultural nerve.Watch a Video