Cursed Bread

A shimmering fever-dream of a novel, teasing the reader [..] while finding a fresh narrative framework for the relationship between monotonous small-town life and repressed female desire. Cursed Bread contains more riches than many a novel twice its length * Telegraph *
A quietly rich maturation of Mackintosh’s skill… This is a book about the power desire and greed exert over reality and memory… Mackintosh has entered a brilliant new stage of writing * Guardian *
Nimble, terrifying… Mackintosh is a wonderful prose stylist and she uses many of the resources that served her well in her Booker prize-nominated debut, The Water Cure: the slow unravelling of sanity, the isolated and mysterious setting, that feeling of panting, crawling, unfulfilled desire… A dreamy sapphic romp * The Times *
Remarkable, sensuous, thrillingly written … Mackintosh’s evocation of desire is so tangible that you can smell the aroma of illicit sex * Observer *
A richly atmospheric tale of greed, desire and vainglorious ambition, the plot centres around Elodie, wife of the village baker, who projects the wants and desires from her own unfulfilling marriage onto the arrival of two glamorous newcomers to the village… Shimmering with an almost hallucinatory quality throughout, closing its pages at The End feels like waking up from a fever dream. Fascinating. * Marie Claire *
A sun-scorched fever dream … Mackintosh’s top-notch phrasemaking and knack for forming uncanny images generate a baleful atmosphere of lust and dread in this splendidly peculiar tale * Daily Mail *
Sensual, luminous, transcendent… This tale of obsession, desire and betrayal has a timeless, dreamlike quality. It confirms Mackintosh as one of our finest young writers * The Bookseller, Editor’s Choice *
As in her previous novels, Mackintosh’s prose is eerie but minimalist - dreamlike yet grounded. Her style elevates plot to the status of fable or allegory without resorting to straightforward metaphor. This a story shrouded in mist, thick with meaning * New Statesman *
This novel is a masterclass in observation, of fracturing personalities but also in its tight and nuanced portrait of the rituals and minutiae of small-town life. Afterwards, you’ll want to devour it all over again * Independent *
Mackintosh’s dark imagination and precision as a prose stylist combine to devastating effect, as unsettling as it is unpredictable * Financial Times *

Sophie Mackintosh is the author of four novels, including The Water Cure and Cursed Bread. She has been longlisted for the Man Booker Prize and the Women’s Prize, has won a Betty Trask Award, and has been selected as one of Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists. She has been published in Granta, The White Review and TANK magazine among others. Her new novel, Permanence, will be published in April 2026.

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