The Turnout

It was the three of them. Always the three of them. Until it wasn’t.

Dara and Marie were trained as ballet dancers by their glamorous mother, founder of the Durant School of Dance. After their parents died in a tragic accident nearly a dozen years ago, the sisters took over running the school together with Charlie, Dara’s husband and once their mother’s prized student.
But when a suspicious accident occurs, just at the onset of the school’s annual performance of The Nutcracker – a season of competition, anxiety, and exhilaration – an interloper arrives and threatens their delicate balance.

The instant New York Times bestseller

‘This is an extraordinary psychological thriller, that brilliantly delivers its narrative and atmosphere through the taut, damaged bodies of its dancer protagonists. The writing is so pungent, physical and sensuous you feel like you’re right there in the room with these obsessive, damaged, seductive characters. It’s like Dario Argento’s Suspiria performing a pas de deux with Donna Tartt’s The Secret History ― Keith Stuart, bestselling author of The Boy Made of Blocks (2021)

‘Compulsively readable’ RUTH WARE

‘A book you will not be able to forget’ MARK BILLINGHAM

‘My thriller of the year’ JAKE KERRIDGE, DAILY TELEGRAPH, BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR

‘The feeling of menace grows stronger with every page’ GUARDIAN

‘Slow-burning and feverish, with all the intensity of a classic American film noir’ MAIL ON SUNDAY

‘Charged with foreboding, the novel throbs with gothic tension’ IRISH TIMES

‘Dark and juicy and tinged with horror’ NEW YORK TIMES

‘There’s no one who captures the atmosphere of a tight-knit hothouse world, in all its feverish beauty and brutality, quite like Megan Abbott’ TANA FRENCH