Precious You

Near the start of Monks Takhar’s dark and disquieting debut, 41-year-old Katherine Ross, editor of Leadership, a trade magazine, learns she has a new intern: publisher Gemma Lunt’s 24-year-old niece, Lily Lunt. Lily’s youth and millennial sensibilities make the already depressed Gen Xer feel ancient and irrelevant, so she’s secretly thrilled when Lily invites her out for drinks and proclaims her admiration. Shortly thereafter, Lily begins edging out Katherine at work, but Lily’s already charmed Katherine’s assistant and her significant other, 50-something failed screenwriter Iain, and both dismiss Katherine’s burgeoning suspicions regarding Lily’s actual intentions. Consequently, by the time Katherine realizes that Lily has designs on both her job and her partner, ruin is inexorable. Monks Takhar intersperses Katherine’s bitter and broken first-person narrative, which is directed at Lily, with entries from Lily’s diary detailing her motives and machinations. Though psychotic “snowflake” Lily rings true, curmudgeonly Katherine reads a decade older than her stated age, which undercuts the plot. Still, Monks Takhar delivers an excruciatingly tense slow burn that’s rife with twists that shock and devastate. [em]Agent: Allison Hunter, Janklow & Nesbit. (Mar.) [/em]