Precious You: A Novel

by Helen Monks Takhar

Overview

An obsessive power struggle between an editor and her millennial intern turns dangerous in this debut psychological thriller—for readers of Luckiest Girl Alive and You.

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY KIRKUS REVIEWS • “Hypnotic . . . an addictive thriller.”—People

Trusting you was my first mistake. To Katherine, twenty-four-year-old Lily Lunt is a typical “snowflake.” It seems like the privileged, politically correct millennial will do whatever she can to make it big as a writer, including leveraging her family’s connections. To Lily, Katherine Ross, a career woman in her early forties, is a holdover from another era: clueless, old-fashioned, and perfectly happy to build her success on the backs of her unpaid interns.

When Lily is hired as the new intern at the magazine where Katherine is editor in chief, her arrival threatens the very foundation of the self-serving little world that Katherine has built. She finds herself obsessively drawn to Lily, who seems to be a cruel reminder of the beauty and potential she once had—things Lily uses against Katherine as she slowly begins to undermine her, sabotaging her work and turning the magazine’s new publisher against her. Is Katherine being paranoid? Or is Lily seeking to systematically destroy her life? As Katherine tries to fight back, a toxic generational divide turns explosive and long-buried secrets are exposed—with deadly consequences for both. . . .

Gripping and provocative, Precious You delivers an unsettling, provocative take on the contemporary workplace, turning the professional roles women play on their heads in a razor-sharp, revenge-driven thriller for our age.

Praise for Precious You

“Breathtaking. A brilliant, butt-kicking romp through the Gen X/Millennial clash and the horrors of cutthroat corporate life. I couldn't put it down.”—Alex Marwood, Edgar Award–winning author of The Wicked Girls

“What a wild ride. I’m obsessed with it! I felt so seen, so many times. This book, while so twisted and dark, will resonate with many, many women.”—Laurie Elizabeth Flynn, author of Last Girl Lied To

“An intergenerational clash between two women, played out to a shocking finale. Nail-biting.”—Harriet Tyce, author of Blood Orange

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781984855961
Publisher:	Random House Publishing Group
Publication date:	03/10/2020
Pages:	336
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

Helen Monks Takhar has been working as a journalist, copywriter, and magazine editor since 1999, after graduating from Cambridge University. She began her career in financial trade newspapers before writing for national newspapers including The Times and The Telegraph. Originally from Southport, Merseyside, she lives in London with her husband and two young children. Precious You is her first novel.

Read an Excerpt

1

Katherine

Six weeks earlier

I’ll never understand why they weren’t worried, those young things I saw every day at the bus stop, stretching free of their crammed houseshares and parental buy-­to-­lets in my neighborhood, at least a mile from the nearest place they would actively choose to live. Why didn’t they care we hadn’t seen a bus for twenty minutes? I made a mental note to ask Iain why no one under thirty seemed arsed about being late for work anymore, then texted my deputy, Asif. I was hoping he’d have words of reassurance, something I could use to soothe my latest work-­related crisis. That Monday was the first day of a brave new world at the magazine I edited: new owners, a new publisher, a shot at a new start. I knew it was critical I made a good impression, but the world was already screwing this for me by making all the buses disappear.

I messaged Asif:

No bus. Confess late now or busk it?

And got back a not particularly helpful:

Nice weekend? New publisher already here. Not sure. Good luck. xxx

I can see myself that morning, gazing in the direction of my flat, the edges of its dried-­out window boxes just visible from where I stood. I wore the oversized high-­collared shirt I’d bought the day before, an ankle-­length pencil skirt split to the thigh and the black biker I always wore to work. I wanted to show up looking just-­pressed, but edgy and not desperate to fit into the new corporate regime I was facing, even though, of course, I was.

Mondays were already hard for me, even before that day. It wasn’t just that after twenty years I seemed to be getting worse at my job, not better, nor that the youth, hope, and unbounded energy of my interns shoved the frustrated promise of my own formative years right back in my face with greater force every day. No, it was the awfulness, the horrifying dread, of the interns asking me, “What did you do this weekend?”

Compared to when I was at the height of my potential in my twenties, I felt invisible most of the time. But on Monday mornings I felt suddenly watched. I tried, as I so often did when I was surrounded by millennials, to minimize the damage to my pride. While they recounted their energetic tales of running around London, meeting other bright young things from north, south, east, and western corners, as I had once done, I sat tight. I had done next to nothing with no one but Iain, and this could be exposed at any second. I’d sometimes manage to arrange phone interviews for 9 a.m. on Mondays, so I could block out their weekend lives and avoid their social and creative endeavors showing up my dead existence. If anyone got to ask me The Monday Morning Question, I’d recently taken to out-­and-­out lying, telling the interns, “We caught up with some old friends.”

That Monday, my anxiety was soaring when I caught the glow of a taxi’s light far up the road. I watched it furtively at first, until I realized I was the only one inching toward the edge of the pavement to hail it. Of course, none of the bus stop lot had the money for a black cab. No money, but plenty of time. Their lives were rich with activities and all the time they had to do them: arts, crafts, queuing for artisan toast, curating photographic records of their fizzy lives on social media, and generally being creatively incontinent. I felt the hum of self-­belief and productivity whenever I was around younger adults and it left me feeling singed.

I double-­checked behind me for any would-­be competitors for my cab. I saw you.

You were something quite different.

You had their air of creative confidence, the one I could only assume comes from parents who cheerlead your every trifling achievement, but you seemed to carry a hunger about you too; some neediness in your eyes. Out of nowhere, I got the sense you were a young person with whom I might possibly have some common ground.

Because unlike the others, you seemed like you were bothered by being late for work. Less like them, more like me. Such an odd sense of time and age I felt you emit: undeniably as young as them, but somehow seeming older and more desperate, like me, all at once. And do you remember, you wore that tiny leather skirt? I have one just like it and I used to wear it to work too. Your skin was as pale as mine, but fully taut and shimmering, except for a dirty stripe of oil on the right side of your forehead. I couldn’t take my eyes off you. You were like looking into a mirror, or more like a window into a different time in my life, not long past, but just out of reach. I wanted to know more about you, to see if you really could be anything like me. When the taxi began to pull over, I began to wonder if I should invite you to share it.

I glanced back at you again. A finger on your left hand fiddled with the string tag on the yellow laptop case you held against the front of your thighs. You switched your weight from hip to hip and occasionally flicked the nails of your right thumb and index finger under your chin. I took the door handle and turned around to take you in one last time, before the ebb and flow of a London day separated our paths. A thought needled its way to the front of my mind: your face would return to me throughout the day and I’d have to exorcize you by telling Iain over dinner about The Girl I Saw at the Bus Stop Who Reminded Me of The Old Me.

But you were watching me.

As you looked over, you bit your bottom lip, painted hot orange like the sunrise in summertime, and flicked your nails against your skin again before moving your black eyes off me to the nonexistent bus on the horizon.

I could let you into my cab, but I wondered what we would possibly talk about. Or maybe you’d just sink into your phone, like people your age do, and I wouldn’t get to talk to you at all. And how would you pay your way? People like you never have cash on them, so would I give you my bank details so you could transfer your share of the fare? Was that wise? Was that cool? Wasn’t there an app for that, one I’d be embarrassed to say I haven’t downloaded or even heard of yet? Or would you ask to meet me somewhere at lunchtime to give me my twenty quid? Would we then end up having a burger? Find ourselves talking for ages?

Go on, girl, you show ’em what us old ravers are made of, I could hear Iain say.

No.

No, I should leave it.

I didn’t need to overcomplicate what was already shaping up to be another day I’d want to forget. I opened the taxi door and readied myself to leave you on the pavement, but suddenly you were there, right behind me.

You made me jump.

“Hi there, you must be heading south? Mind if I get in?” When you spoke to me, your mouth split to reveal the most fantastic teeth.

“Yes. I mean, I’m heading to Borough, but—”

“Perfect. Me too. Wait a sec, sorry, I’ve just realized, I literally don’t have any cash.”

Behind you I saw that the bearded and big-­haired gaggle were agog that you’d thought of hitching a ride and they hadn’t. If I refused you, I feared a group of them would initiate some kind of collective action, gathering their grubby coins together in a bid to get in.

“It’s fine, just get in.” One of you had to be better than three or four.

“Is that all right? You’re absolutely sure?”

You gained and double-­checked my consent. It was a technique you would use again and again on me when I didn’t understand what I was agreeing to. One of your many gifts.

Editorial Reviews

01/13/2020

Near the start of Monks Takhar’s dark and disquieting debut, 41-year-old Katherine Ross, editor of Leadership, a trade magazine, learns she has a new intern: publisher Gemma Lunt’s 24-year-old niece, Lily Lunt. Lily’s youth and millennial sensibilities make the already depressed Gen Xer feel ancient and irrelevant, so she’s secretly thrilled when Lily invites her out for drinks and proclaims her admiration. Shortly thereafter, Lily begins edging out Katherine at work, but Lily’s already charmed Katherine’s assistant and her significant other, 50-something failed screenwriter Iain, and both dismiss Katherine’s burgeoning suspicions regarding Lily’s actual intentions. Consequently, by the time Katherine realizes that Lily has designs on both her job and her partner, ruin is inexorable. Monks Takhar intersperses Katherine’s bitter and broken first-person narrative, which is directed at Lily, with entries from Lily’s diary detailing her motives and machinations. Though psychotic “snowflake” Lily rings true, curmudgeonly Katherine reads a decade older than her stated age, which undercuts the plot. Still, Monks Takhar delivers an excruciatingly tense slow burn that’s rife with twists that shock and devastate. Agent: Allison Hunter, Janklow & Nesbit. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly

03/01/2020

DEBUT Takhar's first novel uses clichéd generational struggles in the workplace as the foundation for a thrilling game of cat-and-mouse. Katherine Ross is a stereotypical Gen-Xer. The editor of Leadership magazine, she still rocks leather jackets and skirts and has no qualms about divulging the details of her long-term open relationship with Iain. When the publication is bought out, Katherine is shocked to discover that the new owner has brought along her millennial niece, Lily, to help run the show. Things immediately turn creepy as Lily systematically picks away at Katherine's life, stealing her friends, lovers, and professional prowess. Why is Lily so determined to destroy Katherine? A hidden manuscript contains the chilling reason, and Lily is just manipulative and shifty enough to uncover it all. VERDICT Things progress rather quickly and unrealistically at times, and some of the plot twists are hard to follow, but this debut with an interesting premise is a solid read. It shines a new light on generational dynamics at work, and readers will recognize themselves and others in the characters.—Chelsie Harris, San Diego Cty. Lib.

Library Journal

★ 2019-12-09
A Gen X magazine editor-in-chief and her new millennial intern play an escalating game of cat and mouse in former journalist Monks Takhar's debut psychological thriller.

At 41, London magazine editor Katherine Ross already feels like a walking cliché. She and her longtime partner Iain, a failed screenwriter, used to be the cool kids, complete with an open relationship and a cavalier attitude to drugs and drink. Now Katherine feels old and out of touch, reaching for a life that seems to have gotten away from her. After 20 years with her magazine, Leadership, and a bout of depression that caused a blip in her upward trajectory (and seems to be trying to take her over again), she's trying to get back into the swing of things. Enter Lily Lunt, a beautiful, vibrant, and privileged 24-year-old upstart who seems to have weaseled her way into an internship via her aunt Gemma—who recently bought Leadership. Lily is everything Katherine used to be: "I couldn't take my eyes off you. You were like looking into a mirror, or more like a window into a different time in my life, not long past, but just out of reach." The lonely Katherine's desire for mutual understanding, maybe even friendship, with Lily is clouded by instinctive mistrust. Katherine soon recognizes that Lily's wide-eyed innocence is a mask, but what is she hiding? Lily wastes no time sidelining and embarrassing Katherine at Leadership, and before Katherine knows it, Lily has also wormed her way into Katherine's personal life, including, to her horror, her relationship with Iain. Katherine and Lily's tense and twisted push and pull unfolds through sinuous, overlapping first-person narratives—addressed to each other—that the author carefully shapes to highlight the characters' often divergent takes on shared events. Monks Takhar tackles workplace dynamics, aging, feminism, mental illness, and the hotly debated generation gap, all within the framework of a tightly plotted revenge thriller that reads a bit like a less soapy 21st-century Single White Female. Readers won't be able to tear their eyes away as this runaway train inevitably derails.

A wickedly sharp first novel from an author to watch.

Kirkus Reviews

An incredibly addictive thriller that examines women in the workplace, ageism, and the clash of generations. It’s creepy and unnerving, with observations that are often dead-on.”—Samantha Downing, author of My Lovely Wife

“A deliciously dark, addictive, and twisted page-turner.”—Alice Feeney, New York Times bestselling author of Sometimes I Lie

“Twisted, dark, and shocking . . . Absolutely terrific.”—Jo Spain, internationally bestselling author of The Confession

“Dark, disturbing, compulsive . . . I was genuinely terrified reading this.”—Adele Parks, internationally bestselling author of I Invited Her In

“I gulped this down in a single afternoon. . . . Audacious, dark, and smart, with one of the most shocking scenes I’ve read in a while.”—Phoebe Locke, author of The July Girls

“Disturbing, zeitgeisty, and twisted, Precious You will make you second-guess everything and change the way you look at your colleagues forever.”—Phoebe Morgan, author of The Doll House and The Girl Next Door

“What a debut! Twisty, explosive, and hugely compelling, with hints of Gone Girl . . . Excellent.”—Will Dean, author of Dark Pines and Red Snow

“A brilliantly twisted tale . . . LOVED it.”—Lisa Hall, author of Have You Seen Her

“If you like dark and twisted thrillers with venom in their veins, add this to your wish list!”—Anita Frank, author of The Lost Ones

“A slick, fast-paced, compelling novel that asks genuine questions. I loved it and was hooked from beginning to end.”—Kate Hamer, internationally bestselling author of The Girl in the Red Coat

“A delicious generational struggle.”—New York Post “Best Books of the Week”

“A hypnotic dance of obsession, gaslighting, and revenge that doesn’t let up until its final unnerving reveal.”—People “Best New Books”

“Absolutely haunting . . . An exceptional debut due to its strong female characters and thrilling conflicts, while touching on important subjects such as feminism and workplace dynamics . . . I don’t believe I will forget these characters, nor their story, anytime soon.”—Marta Paraschiv, The Nerd Daily

“Epic . . . Takhar uses the competition between these two women to encourage more solidarity between women, but we can embrace this message and also still vicariously enjoy the characters’ increasingly high-takes maneuvers against each other.”—CrimeReads “12 Novels You Should Read This March”

“Guaranteed to start the mother of all office fights between Generation X and millennials, Monks Takhar’s enjoyable poisonous debut updates All About Eve for our image-obsessed age.”—The Independent “What to Read in 2020”

“This twisty tale of office rivalry sits at the point where women’s commercial fiction meets psychological thriller. . . . Unmissable.”—The Bookseller “One to Watch”

From the Publisher