Romantic love and family dynamics might be the staples of literature, but fictional friendships have provided readers with some of the most enduring, and memorable, pairings – and none more so than the toxic variety. Complex love/hate relationships have inspired novelists from Thackeray to Ferrante, and are the engine that drives many recent thrillers, including Ottessa Moshfegh’s Eileen and Tara Isabella Burton’s Social Creature.
In my debut novel, The House Guest, 25-year-old Kate strikes up an unlikely friendship with Della, a life coach a decade older. Their uneven alliance is put to the test when Della invites Kate to join her family for a summer in France, cutting the younger woman off from everyone she knows as events spiral out of her control.
