Tampa

May 6, 2013
In Nutting’s graphic first novel (after her story collection, Unclean Jobs for Women and Girls), soon-to-be eighth-grade English teacher Celeste Price can barely contain her excitement about her adolescent boys; the 26-year-old passes the night “in an excited loop of hushed masturbation” while her good-looking but dull-witted husband slumbers. Celeste’s mind is as pragmatic as her body is luscious, and her patience (“I had to regard the students like a delicate art exhibit and stay six feet away at all times, lest I be tempted to touch”) pays off. Before long, she coaxes shy Jack into what becomes the first of many liaisons. Unlike American Psycho’s Patrick Bateman, Celeste is aware of her depravity—she fears that were she to work as a model, as some suggest, photos would capture “a soulless pervert”—but she indulges anyway. Her bold choice of meeting Jack at his house after school leads to unsurprising complications, as does the boy’s budding love. When Celeste’s usual caution erodes, all might be lost were this young woman not lover and fighter both. Nutting’s work creates a solid impression of Celeste’s psychopathic nature but, unlike the much richer Lolita, leaves the reader feeling empty. Agent: Jim Rutman, Sterling Lord Literistic.

July 1, 2013
On the surface, 26-year-old Celeste Price seems to have it all. She's stunningly beautiful, married to a handsome police officer from a wealthy family, and about to start a new job as a junior-high teacher. But Celeste is harboring a dark secret: she is driven by a sexual obsession with prepubescent teenage boys. Her new job allows her unrestricted access to the objects of her lust, and she soon settles on one14-year-old Jack Patrick, a quiet, thoughtful boy in her third-period class. Celeste stalks Jack and discovers he lives alone with his father before making her move on the boy in her classroom. Her seduction of Jack is successful, and Celeste and the boy are soon engaging in steamy trysts wherever and whenever they can manage them. Though Celeste is able to keep her dim-witted husband at bay, she is thrown a curveball when Jack's father, Buck, expresses interest in her. A chilling examination of a sociopath whose beautiful face masks her pathology, Nutting's debut is taut, sexually explicit, and utterly engrossing.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)