We’re excited to be giving away two copies of LIT by Anna Woods to our GrownUps members!
To be in the draw, simply make sure you’re a GrownUps member, signed up to our newsletter, and fill in your details at the bottom of the page.
From an award-winning New Zealand writer comes a debut literary suspense novel, a slow-burning, atmospheric read.
Auckland-based author Anna Woods pens a debut novel after a career garnering recognition and awards for her short stories (Sargeson Award 2023 and the Commonwealth Short Story Prize shortlist 2024). In this psychological thriller, Woods explores systems of control and how power, class and beauty can be weaponised. Set in Auckland, LIT is a twist-driven literary thriller that tells a sharp and unsettling story about control, gaslighting and the lies we tell to survive.
What would you do if someone you knew came back from the dead?
Gin is an architect on the brink. LIT, the Auckland-based practice she shares with her girlfriend, Clary, has been precarious since their third partner – Clary’s ex, Billy – disappeared, presumed dead.
Now, several years later, LIT’s financial problems and Gin’s personal debts are snowballing. Clary – emotionally fragile since the disappearance – is growing increasingly remote and elusive. When Gin begins to be haunted by glimpses of Billy, she blames stress and guilt. But could he be back, threatening to expose the past? Trapped in a web of secrecy and betrayal, Gin’s downward spiral gathers force as she begins to suspect her paranoia hides an even more shocking truth – one that will send her whole life up in flames.
This stunning debut literary-suspense novel from award-winning writer Anna Woods explores the insidious charm of those who gaslight us, and examines the blurry line between love and control.
Praise:
‘LIT is a highly sophisticated thriller, pulsing with paranoia and suspense, its claustrophobic tension tightening with every page. Anna Woods’ debut is the ultimate slow burn, elegant, compulsive and haunting.’ ROSE CARLYLE
‘Sharp, twisty and atmospheric. Woods is an exciting new voice in psychological suspense.’ RACHEL PARIS
Author note:
‘After losing a loved one, sometimes you can recognise them in another’s face, and for a split-second, they aren’t gone. Driving to work one day, I did a double-take, thinking I had seen someone who had died years earlier. That moment of mistaken recognition made me wonder: what if he hadn’t died, but only pretended to? What if he came back?
At the time, I was reading Clarissa, by Samuel Richardson, and the consummate gaslighting by the villain, Robert Lovelace, fascinated me. He seemed the perfect candidate for a dastardly reappearance. With these two threads, I began writing.
While researching, I discovered many fascinating stories of people who had faked their own deaths, as well as a P.I. who was paid to help people disappear. Their motive, as April says in LIT, is always money, sex or death, and these fault-lines run through the book.
Other elements snuck in – architecture, design, class, capitalism, creativity. While I strayed a long way from Richardson’s text, the central problem of LIT remains that posed by Clarissa: what is the price of control?
I hope readers will be swept up in the mystery of LIT, but also that it will encourage them to question systems of control in their own lives – and how they might break free.’
About the Author:
Anna Woods is an award-winning writer from Tāmaki Makaurau, Auckland, whose short fiction has been published in a range of journals and anthologies. The recipient of various awards, residencies and mentorships, she has won the Sargeson Prize and been shortlisted for the Commonwealth Short Story Prize. LIT is her first novel.
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Terms and conditions
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You must be a GrownUps member and subscribed to our newsletter to be eligible to enter.
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The competition closes on 1st July 2026. Winners will be notified via email by 2nd July 2026.
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Winners will be drawn at random by the GrownUps administration team.
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One entry per household.
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