Muse

A contemporary gothic thriller set in Edinburgh's winter dark, about a painter, a programme, and a muse who asks very gently to stay.

Mara Gibson hasn't finished a painting in two years. Grief-stricken and desperate, she joins an experimental creativity programme at an Edinburgh university. Her agent says it worked wonders for another artist. The art flows. Better than anything she's made before. The programme delivers exactly what it promised.

She just can't remember what she agreed to.

Small things go missing first. A PIN. The name of a colour she's mixed a thousand times. The walk home from the studio. She's always been scattered, and it's easy to explain away. Everyone around her is delighted. The gallerist calls the new work "inevitable". Her agent books the London show.

But the gaps aren't staying small. And the woman looking back at her from the new paintings is steadier than she's ever been. Calmer. Cleaner. More certain.

She should be grateful. She should stop asking questions.

She should remember why she can't.

A Faustian novel about grief, addiction, and the terror of getting everything you asked for. For readers of Kazuo Ishiguro, Shirley Jackson and Julia Armfield.