Celeste Price is smart, cunning, and a circumspect sexual predator who preys on 14-year old boys and who is also too pretty for jail and can manipulate the American justice system to avoid jail time.

All these set the stage for an erotic dark mystery with an amazingly executed plot. Celeste is a powerful character whose kind I haven't found anywhere else in literature. Although it's inspired by Debra Lafave's trials, it's quite different from the case and Nutting's own majestic creation. I also appreciated the wickedness in all other characters, especially the men who are quite superficial and which fit perfectly. I adore Nutting's prose and her piercing writing style and I love the way how she makes serious situations quite dankly humourous. I am looking forward to reading more of her works.

This stands as a prominent work of transgressive fiction for me.