| Press Release blueeyedboy
by Joanne Harris
A gripping psychological thriller, her second, from the bestselling author of Gentlemen and Players and The Lollipop Shoes, told through posts on a webjournal.
“It is only fiction, isn’t it? This virtual life is so nicely secure, battened against reality. These virtual friends, too, are safely confined behind this screen, this mouse pad. No-one expects to encounter the truth in these worlds we build for ourselves.”
blueeyedboy is the brilliant new novel from Joanne Harris: a dark and cleverly plotted tale of synaesthesia; deceit; colours; revenge; scents; a chillingly dysfunctional family; a blind child prodigy who “sees” music - and murder.
BB, or blueeyedboy, is a middle-aged man in a dead-end job, who lives with his mother in Malbry, the Yorkshire town first encountered in Harris’ novel Gentlemen & Players. To escape his humdrum life, BB re-invents himself online and plays out his murderous fantasies by means of a website called badguysrock. Through this virtual community he manipulates online friends and enemies alike, including some that he already knows in real life – most particularly Albertine, with whom he shares a troubled history.
But, blueeyedboy, like Albertine, is not what he seems. As the events of his past unravel – his toxic relationship with his mother; his feud with his two brothers - the details of his secret life, including the truth about a string of unsolved murders, an old scandal and the twenty-year old disappearance of a little girl, are revealed in a series of breathtaking spins and turns.
The scope for deception and fantasy offered by the internet fits perfectly with Joanne Harris’ spellbinding narrative skills and with blueeyedboy she reaches new heights. Unsettling, anarchic, audacious, compelling, and with more than a dash of black humour, this is Joanne Harris - with a twist.
Visit Joanne Harris’ Facebook page and follow blueeyedboy himself at
www.myspace.com/blueeyedboyatbadguysrock
The playlists that accompany blueeyedboy’s posts are available at Spotify and iTunes.
Go to www.joanne-harris.co.uk for further details.
To be published on May 1, 2010
by Doubleday UK at $26.95 Canadian, Trade Paper Original
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