She is the perfect host. He’s the perfect victim.
Royal Marine Connor has dreamed of serving in Special Forces since he was sixteen. If he can just make it through training, he’ll join an elite taskforce, and then perhaps he’ll stop missing his ex-partner Michelle and daughter Ivy so much. But the training proves harder than Connor ever imagined. Alone and freezing on Bodmin Moor as he tries to outpace a hunter force, he can’t resist an offer of shelter from a local stranger.
At first, Eilidh seems to be an impeccable host. She offers Connor beautifully prepared food and a warm bed, among other things. But something isn’t quite right – what is Eilidh’s motive for inviting him in? Why would a trained physiotherapist choose to live in such a remote location? And what is the nature of Eilidh’s relationship with her housemate Julie, who seems utterly dependent on her?
Before long, Connor realises he cannot simply leave; he must escape, and that Eilidh, rather than Special Forces Selection, is the biggest test he will ever face…
You Can Stay is a book you fall into and clamber out hours later a little dazed. The terror of captivity and the loss of control are visceral, and the writing is tight, clever, and immensely entertaining. Amid the chilling details and the ever-increasing tension are laugh out loud moments – delicious humour hiding among the horror…Misery for the Goop generation. Never have I been so glad not to be a member of the steamed vagina crowd. You Can Stay is fantastic – an absolute treat of a book.
Catherine Simpson, author of One Body
If you like your female protagonists sinister, mysterious and complex – think Ottessa Moshfegh’s Eileen – then you will love You Can Stay. A chilling and twisty drama that kept me in its grip throughout.
Elissa Soave, author of Ginger and Me
thrillingly dark…Elle Connel rethinks the trope of the helpless female victim
Scots Magazine
I have never fallen so hard for a book this far out of my comfort zone. A stunning book about gender and power and a fine homage to Stephen King’s Misery. Deeply unsettling and impossble to put down.
Claire L Heuchan (on Twitter, Sister Outrider)
So gripping I read it in one compulsive sitting
Claire Askew
Prepare to be creeped out and morally compromised by slippery and intriguing characters locked in a battle of wills. In her protagonists, Connel has created an unforgettable interrogation of what it means to dominate, to submit and to betray for the sake of a higher ideal – no matter how misguided. Witty, grounded and entertaining, this is a thrilling read.
Lynsey May, author of Weak Teeth
I love it when I pick up a book thinking it will be one thing and it turns out to be a whole lot of something else! Absolutely loved this – so dark, yet laced with humour, and such clever plotting. Loved the characters, and the ending is sublime. Buy it!!
Susi Holliday