(CW - discussion of SA, r*pe and trauma)

Brave, brutal, brilliant. This debut novel is a scream rising in the throat of every silenced women.

Gold Rush follows Rose, a PR Assistant swept up by the attentions of 'heartthrob' popstar, Milo Jax. When Rose wakes up after spending a night with him, she's missing memories and losing blood. Not knowing how else to cope, she pushes what she knows has happened away – but denied trauma will always resurface. With an initial subtlety that hurtles into urgent concentration, Petter presents astute commentary on misogyny, power, privilege, nepotism, performativism, influencer and celebrity culture, accountability, covert ab*se, trauma, and the horrific, stigmatic discourse around SA and r*pe.

Milo has that hard-to-resist charisma often found in narcissistic abusers. Even though the blurb tells us what he does and what he is, it's a fight not to be taken in by his charm. I both hate and revere Petter's ability to achieve this. His brief physical presence alongside Rose becomes a complete inhabitation of her mind, an abduction of her body, and an expropriation of her power. The novel is a complex and painfully accurate study of trauma, with Rose experiencing flashbacks, nightmares and insomnia, panic attacks, functional freeze, dissociation and depersonalisation on page. She is torn between confiding in someone, confronting Milo, or just concealing what happened and trying to carry on. The struggle was all too familiar, but it was so incredibly validating to see myself and my own experiences reflected in Rose, Clara, and Minnie.

I'm devastated that so many of us won't be strangers to the exhaustion and anguish of Gold Rush, but I'm so thankful to not feel so lost or alone in it anymore.