A spellbinding novel of psychological suspense that follows a young archivist’s obsession with her subject’s mysterious death as it threatens to destroy her fragile grasp on sanity.

Journalist Kate Aitken leaves New York for a fresh start in California and a new job- as an archivist for the estate of famed photographer Miranda Brand, who died mysteriously some decades earlier. Miranda’s son, Theo, has returned to the family home after his father’s death, and needs Kate to organise his mother’s work and the mess of her personal effects.

The further Kate digs into the material, the more a picture begins to emerge of a vibrant artist buckling under the pressures of ambition, motherhood and marriage. But Kate has secrets of her own, including a growing attraction to the enigmatic Theo, and when she stumbles across Miranda’s diary, her curiosity spirals into a dangerous obsession.

A darkly seductive tale of two magnetic women pinned down by secrets and lies, Take Me Apart is also a chilling, thought-provoking take on art, illness and power, from a spellbinding new voice in psychological suspense.

Sara Sligar is an author and academic based in Los Angeles, where she teaches English and creative writing as a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Southern California. She holds a PhD in English from the University of Pennsylvania and a master’s in History from the University of Cambridge. Her writing has been published in McSweeney’s, Quartz, Hairpin and other outlets. Take Me Apart is her first novel.