Editions

The Snakes

The Snakes

  • The gripping Richard & Judy 2020 Bookclub pick

READ THE TENSE TWIST-FILLED RICHARD AND JUDY BOOK CLUB PICK FOR SPRING 2020 FROM THE #1 BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF THE OUTCAST.

Family secrets can be deadly…

Newly-weds Dan and Bea decide to escape London. Driving through France in their beaten-up car they anticipate a long lazy summer, worlds away from their ordinary lives.

But their idyll cannot last. Stopping off to see Bea’s brother at his crumbling hotel, the trio are joined unexpectedly by Bea’s ultra-wealthy parents. Dan has never understood Bea’s deep discomfort around them but living together in such close proximity he begins to sense something is very wrong.

Just as tensions reach breaking point, brutal tragedy strikes, exposing decades of secrets and silence that threaten to destroy them all.

‘A suspenseful, beautifully written thriller about the corruption of money and abuse within a dysfunctional family’ Guardian

Reviews

  • Sadie Jones is such an enjoyable novelist to spend time with. Her books are so easy to read, while each sentence is rich in meaty observation… Elegantly atmospheric… The Snakes left me breathless

    Daily Mail

  • The Snakes asks serious questions about human nature, avarice and justice, wrapped in the fast-paced rhythms of a thriller. It is written with Jones’s trademark economy and a fierce attention to the nuances of familial cruelty… I finished The Snakes with a juddering heart, strangely close to tears

    Guardian

  • Ever since her debut, The Outcast, Jones has peopled her propulsive plots with nuanced, dimensional creations imbued with human failings and graces. The Snakes is no exception… Jones crafts a pitiless shock ending; a denouement that refuses closure and resonates long after the book is set aside… [the ending is] bound to become a talking point

    Financial Times

More from this Author

About the Author

Sadie Jones

Sadie Jones is a novelist and screenwriter. Her first novel, The Outcast (‘Devastatingly good’, Daily Mail) won the Costa First Novel Award in 2008 and was shortlisted for the Orange Prize. It was also a Richard and Judy Summer Reads number one bestseller and adapted for BBC Television. Her second novel, Small Wars (‘Outstanding’, The Times; ‘One of the best books about the English at war ever’, Joel Morris), was published in 2009, and longlisted for the Orange Prize. Her third, in 2012, was The Uninvited Guests (‘A shimmering comedy of manners and disturbing commentary on class... a brilliant novel’, Ann Patchett) followed by Fallout in 2014 (‘Intoxicating and immersive’, The Sunday Times).

Sadie Jones

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Extracts

The Snakes by Sadie Jones

The Snakes is the devastating story of a family whose worst sins come back to bite them. In this extract, Bea and her husband Dan arrive at her brother Alex's hotel in France, having escaped London for a few months. To their horror they find Alex living alone, the hotel ramshackle and deserted apart from a nest of snakes living in the attic…
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Recommendations

Summer fiction reading list from VINTAGE
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Features

Sadie Jones on being both writer and observer

Adapting The Outcast for the BBC wasn't the first thing to bring Sadie Jones onto a film set. Here she writes about her experiences behind the scenes and the curious position of being both writer and observer

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