Plaything

Paperback Published on: 07/08/2025
Price: £9.99
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Bookseller Reviews

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Plaything
Obsessed
Set in Cambridge, Anna is studying for her PhD, looking at how diabetes in a pregnancy can affect the child. (TW: descriptive scientific testing on animals... READ MORE
Lauren at Birmingham

Synopsis

'I just loved it – it truly wedged itself into my brain. Absolutely vile and brilliant. Plaything is an unhinged melody, and it will serenade fans of the darkest narratives.' Alice Slater, author of Death of a Bookseller

Anna is smart. Smarter than you, probably. But when she falls for the beautiful, enigmatic Caden, her need to get under his skin, to truly know him becomes overpowering.

Anna’s new life in Cambridge is full of promise – she’s the top student in her PhD cohort, she has great friends and she has met an exhaustingly attractive man – but something is a little off. Perhaps it’s the routine violence of her lab work with animals, or maybe it’s something to do with her boyfriend’s icy reserve but it seems there is a kind of menace hiding beneath the Cambridge dream.

When Anna and Caden's lives become tightly entangled, her obsession with Caden’s seemingly ever-present ex-girlfriend reaches a dangerous pitch… Just how far will she go to satiate her curiosity?

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'Pleasingly unpredictable'Daily Mail
'A gloriously tense tale of obsession'Financial Times
'One that will remain with me . . . the final page made me shudder' John Boyne, Irish Times
'A seductive tale of infatuation and the complexities of romance' Amy Twigg, author of Spoilt Creatures

Publisher information

  • Publisher: Transworld Publishers Ltd
  • ISBN: 9781804994498
  • Number of pages: 336
  • Dimensions: 198 x 128 x 23 mm
  • Weight: 234g
  • Languages: English

Customer Reviews

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Plaything
Great read
‘Hinc lucem et pocula sacra’ From here [we derive] light and sacred draughts. Cambridge University motto. Anna is very clever, way smarter than you or ... READ MORE
Celia Short
Plaything
oddly engaging
An oddly engaging book; full of unlikeable, unknowable characters doing odd things, but, the author's writing was so good that I wanted to carry on reading... READ MORE
jean
Plaything
This Story Will Stay With Me
4.5 stars. This book is unsettling, raw, ugly...and completely compelling. It is the very epitome of a car crash that you just can't tear your eyes away fr... READ MORE
Kerry Young
Plaything
Small and powerful book for all thriller and lit fic fans
I loved the dark undertones of the human psyche, which was delivered in this relatively short and fast paced novel from Bea Setton. Whilst the author s... READ MORE
Carolanne Mangles
Plaything
An intriguing novel
Plaything by Bea Setton is set in a Cambridge university, but is not a campus novel, Its events take place against the backdrop of Covid, but it is not a ... READ MORE
Ben Dutton
Plaything
Interesting book with difficult themes
"Plaything" is told entirely from the viewpoint of Anna - the story starts with her going to Cambridge University to begin her PHD. She is clearly very int... READ MORE
JosieG
Plaything
Psychological thriller
Anna is a very bright student, just starting a PhD at Cambridge. She strains her wrist rowing, and meets Caden, a physiotherapist, and soon they are a cou... READ MORE
Aidan Dunn