Publisher Description

"An unnerving, elegant page-turner" (Vanity Fair) of psychological suspense about a woman in an intense sexual relationship with a man who turns out to be a predator--by celebrated writers Amy Hempel and Jill Ciment writing as A.J. Rich. Morgan, thirty, is completing her thesis on victim psychology and newly engaged to Bennett, a man more possessive than those she has dated in the past, but also more chivalrous--and the sex is hot. She returns from class one day to find Bennett brutally mauled to death, and her beloved dogs covered in blood. When Morgan tries to locate Bennett's parents to tell them about their son's hideous death, she discovers that everything he has told her--where he was born, where he lives in Montreal, where he works--was a lie. He is not the man he said he was, and he had several fiancées, all believing the same promises he gave Morgan. And then, one by one, these other women are murdered. Morgan's research into Bennett has taken on new urgency: in order to stay alive, she must find out how an intelligent woman like herself, who studies predators, becomes a victim. For readers of Girl on a Train and Luckiest Girl Alive, this "twisty, unsettling thriller" (The New York Times) is an "irresistible" (Vogue) collaboration between two outstanding writers. "The Hand That Feeds You goes from zero to terrifying in about five pages...Once this thriller gets its teeth into you, it doesn't let go" (The Tampa Bay Times).

Author Biography

Amy Hempel is the author of four collections of stories: Reasons to Live, At the Gates of the Animal Kingdom, Tumble Home, and The Dog of the Marriage. Her Collected Stories was published in 2006, and was named one of the New York Times Ten Best Books of the Year. She has won many awards, including a Guggenheim Fellowship, an inaugural USA Foundation Fellowship, and the PEN/Malamud Award for the Short Story. She teaches writing at Bennington College and the University of Florida, and is a founding board member of two dog rescue nonprofit organizations: The Deja Foundation (DejaFoundation.org), and Morgan's Place, a rescue in Connecticut. She lives in Gainesville, Florida, and New York City. Jill Ciment is the author of Small Claims, a collection of stories and novellas; The Law of Falling Bodies, Teeth of the Dog, The Tattoo Artist, Heroic Measures, and Act of God, novels; and Half a Life, a memoir. She has been awarded a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, a NEA Japan Fellowship Prize, two New York State Fellowships for the Arts, the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. Ciment is a professor at the University of Florida. She lives in Gainesville, Florida, and Brooklyn, New York.

Review

"The Hand That Feeds You goes from zero to terrifying in about five pages...The Hand That Feeds You keeps up a breakneck pace and a tensely creepy tone, and its spare, well-crafted writing is a cut above many thrillers. That comes as no surprise, given its authors. On its cover, the book is credited to A.J. Rich, but that's a pen name for authors Amy Hempel and Jill Ciment, who wrote it together...irresistible...Once this thriller gets its teeth into you, it doesn't let go."-- "Colette Bancroft, The Tampa Bay Times"
A.J. Rich's The Hand That Feeds You is mesmerizing and terrifying--a smart, compelling thriller with the kind of suspense that burns calories while you sit perfectly still with breath held. It is also a wise wealth of information about numerous topics: dogs, forensics, the human psyche and perhaps most satisfying of all, it is an exploration of love, grief and compassion.--Jill McCorkle, author of Life After Life and Going Away Shoes
"A fascinating premise, a blindsided narrator, dangeroussurprises, and dogs. What more can you ask for The Hand That Feeds Youis an unnervingly credible story about the most intimate deception."--Abigail Thomas, author of A Three Dog Life and What Comes Next and How to Like It.

Review Quote

"This twisty crime thriller by Amy Hempel and Jill Ciment, writing as A.J. Rich, opens with a bang, or maybe a fang... The well-paced, suspenseful story never pauses...Morgan travels to Boston, Connecticut and elsewhere to track down key players. She hires a freelance hacker to uncover e-mails between Bennett and a mysterious bossy person known as Libertine. Dog love and animal welfare are recurring side themes...they are key to the plot at beginning and cinematic end."

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