A compulsive, disturbingly relevant, twisty and powerful psychological, social-media thriller … NUMBER ONE BESTSELLER
 
LONGLISTED for the Guardian’s Not the Booker Prize

‘Another dark banger from the Orenda Books stable … A brilliant, twisty cat-and-mouse book about fandom and obsession’ Erin Kelly
 
‘Brilliantly twisty. I loved it’ Lisa Jewell

Tom is a successful author, but he’s struggling to finish his novel. His main distraction is an online admirer, Evie, who simply won’t leave him alone.

Evie is smart, well read and unstable; she lives with her father and her social-media friendships are not only her escape, but everything she has.

When she’s hit with a restraining order, her world is turned upside down, and Tom is free to live his life again, to concentrate on writing.

But things aren’t really adding up. For Tom is distracted but also addicted to his online relationships, and when they take a darker, more menacing turn, he feels powerless to change things. Because maybe he needs Evie more than he’s letting on.

A compulsive, disturbingly relevant, twisty and powerful psychological thriller, The Closer I Get is also a searing commentary on the fragility and insincerity of online relationships, and the danger that can lurk just one ‘like’ away…
 
‘A gripping ride through the heartlands of need and hurt. Even at his most thrilling, Paul Burston never loses his sense of real pain and suffering’ Philip Hensher