From the Booker-nominated author of The Water Cure – an eerie and erotic historical mystery about desire, memory and madness

In 1951, still reeling in the aftermath of the deadliest war the world had ever seen, the small French town of Pont-Saint-Esprit succumbed to a mass poisoning. The poison induced hysteria, violent and euphoric hallucinations, and many deaths.

In the years before the disaster, there lived in the town a woman named Elodie. She was the baker’s wife- a plain, unremarkable person who yearned to transcend her dull existence. So when a charismatic new couple arrived in town, Elodie quickly fell under their glamorous spell. Thus began a dangerous game of cat and mouse, the intoxication of the chase slowly seeping into everything – but who was the predator and on whom did they prey?

Audacious and mesmerising, Cursed Bread is a darkly gleaming tale of a town gripped by madness, envy like poison in the blood, and desire that burns and consumes.

Sophie Mackintosh is the author of three novels- The Water Cure, Blue Ticket and Cursed Bread. Her debut novel was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2018 and won a Betty Trask Award 2019. She has been published in Granta, The White Review and TANK magazine among others. Cursed Bread will be published by Hamish Hamilton in March 2023.