Tideline - Tapa dura

`A dark and evocative thriller where a woman abducts a teenage boy and holds him hostage in her house in Greenwich' --Sun

Brilliantly written and totally gripping. I loved it. --S. J. Watson

An impressive debut from a writer we're certain to hear more about if she can fulfil the promise and ambition of this first thriller... There are hints of a young Daphne du Maurier in Hancock's cool, evocative prose as she reveals the terrifying extent of Sonia's obsession... Beautifully worked and with a sharp eye for the menace in the commonplace, it lingers in the memory like a Schubert melody, and casts a distinctive spell --Geoffrey Wansell, Daily Mail

A clever, creepy thriller about misplaced affection and abduction, with a riverside location as an eerie backdrop --Marie Claire

A sparklingly creepy debut thriller with the most brilliant premise --Daily Mirror

This creepy, well-written debut is reminiscent of John Fowles's The Collector, but with the genders reversed... The efficacy of this sort of psychological thriller depends largely on the plausibility of the main characters, and with Sonia, Hancock pulls of the considerable feat of "writing mad" convincingly enough for us to understand the logic of her actions --Laura Wilson, The Guardian

A dark and unsettling tale of abduction and entrapment with all the obsessive power of Stephen King's Misery and Thierry Jonquet's Tarantula . . . I found myself desperate to know more all the way through - until the final shell-shock moments, which left me open-jawed. If you loved the psychological thrills of Before I Go to Sleep by SJ Watson or Into the Darkest Corner by Elizabeth Haynes, or the desperate measures to cover crimes of Graham Reece's Mice, then this is for you. We're just going into the second week of 2012 and already a book of the year has clearly risen to the surface. --Keith Walters, Books and Writers

`Incredibly descriptive and chilling all at once, this thriller is an accomplished debut from Penny Hancock' --Star

`Evocative thriller'

'I always trust Richard and Judy Book Club selections so this creepy debut about a woman's sexual obsession reeled me in' --Cecelia Ahern, Woman & Home, November issue. --Choice magazine

One winter's afternoon, voice coach Sonia opens the door of her beautiful riverside home to fifteen-year-old Jez, the nephew of a family friend. He's come to borrow some music. Sonia invites him in and soon decides that she isn't going to let him leave. As Sonia's desire to keep Jez hidden and protected from the outside world becomes all the more overpowering, she is haunted by memories of an intense teenage relationship, which gradually reveal a terrifying truth. The River House, Sonia's home since childhood, holds secrets within its walls. And outside, on the shores of the Thames, new ones are coming in on the tide...