What's left of me is yours - Stephanie Scott

A BOOK OF THE YEAR FOR THE DAILY MAIL AND WOMAN AND HOME
A New York Times 'Editor's Pick'
One of the Observer's Ten Best Debut Novelists of 2020
Shortlisted for the Author's Club First Novel Award
Longlisted for the Jhalak Prize
Longlisted for the CWA John Creasy New Blood Dagger

'Enrapturing... This richly imagined novel considers the many permutations of love and what we are capable of doing in its name' New York Times

'A brilliant debut' Louise Doughty, author of Apple Tree Yard

'You'll have the heart rate of an Olympic hurdler' Sunday Express

'I read it with my heart in my throat' Sara Collins, author of The Confessions of Frannie Langton

'An exquisitely crafted masterpiece you'll be pressing into the hands of others' Woman & Home


'An intoxicatingly atmospheric mystery' Daily Mail

'Dark, addictive and eye-opening, this is a brilliant debut' Stylist


A gripping debut set in modern-day Tokyo and inspired by a true crime, What's Left of Me Is Yours follows a young woman's search for the truth about her mother's life - and her murder.

In Japan, a covert industry has grown up around the wakaresaseya (literally "breaker-upper"), a person hired by one spouse to seduce the other in order to gain the advantage in divorce proceedings.

When Sato hires Kaitaro, a wakaresaseya agent, to have an affair with his wife, Rina, he assumes it will be an easy case. But Sato has never truly understood Rina or her desires and Kaitaro's job is to do exactly that - until he does it too well.

While Rina remains ignorant of the circumstances that brought them together, she and Kaitaro fall in a desperate, singular love, setting in motion a series of violent acts that will forever haunt her daughter
Sumiko's life.

Told from alternating points of view and across the breathtaking landscapes of Japan, What's Left of Me Is Yours explores the thorny psychological and moral grounds of the actions we take in the name of love, asking where we draw the line between passion and possession.

STEPHANIE SCOTT is a Singaporean and British writer who was born and raised in South East Asia. She read English Literature at the Universities of York and Cambridge and holds an M.St in Creative Writing from Oxford University. Scott was awarded a British Association of Japanese Studies Toshiba Studentship for her anthropological work on What's Left of Me Is Yours and has been made a member of the British Japanese Law Association as a result of her research; an early draft of the manuscript also won the A.M. Heath Prize, the Jerwood Arvon Prize for Prose Fiction, and runner up in the Bridport Prize Peggy Chapman-Andrews Award. What's Left of Me Is Yours is her first novel.WHAT'S LEFT OF ME IS YOURS is her first novel.
stephaniescottauthor.com

I loved What's Left of Me Is Yours. Gripping, heartbreaking, immersive. I read it with my heart in my throat.
Sara Collins, author of THE CONFESSIONS OF FRANNIE LANGTON

A brilliant debut.
Louise Doughty, #1 bestselling author of APPLE TREE YARD and PLATFORM SEVEN

Dark, addictive and eye-opening, this is a brilliant debut.
Stylist, Best Books April 2020

The wealth of detail about life in Japan is truly fascinating... you'll have the heart rate of an Olympic hurdler.
SUNDAY EXPRESS

This incredible debut is one you'll be pressing into the hands of others... it's an exquisite read.
WOMAN'S WEEKLY

[Scott] weaves in fascinating explanations of the legal system... the world she creates in What's Left of Me Is Yours feels very sure under foot: deeply researched, but delicately described. Scott gives a clear sense of place and time, from contemporary Tokyo to evocations of seaside holiday
cabins and shrines in forests... she braids her different characters' timelines together with sophistication, her storytelling harmoniously well-constructed. The big questions over whether it's better to lie or to tell a difficult truth, and what might constitute a betrayal, are layered across generations and decades and there is strength in the subtlety with which Scott slowly unpacks them.
THE OBSERVER

This slow-burning novel tells a story of love, betrayal and lies.
MAIL ON SUNDAY

Scott delivers a delicately nuanced account of a complex tragedy rooted in the clash between illicit desire and the obligations of duty.
IRISH TIMES - Declan Burke

Inspired by a real life situation, this spellbinding story set against the marriage break-up industry in Japan has devastating consequences you almost forget about, so immersed are you in the character's lives... An exquisitely crafted masterpiece you'll be pressing into the hands of others.
WOMAN & HOME

This hotly tipped debut examines the hidden human dramas behind Japan's murky marriage break-up industry, with the dead woman reclaimed as a vivacious, loving mother trapped in an unhappy marriage... lovely.
DAILY MAIL

Exhilarating... Byzantine subplots, distinctive characters, and atmospheric settings will leave readers spellbound.
PUBLISHER WEEKLY

Scott deftly spins a web through modern day Tokyo in this captivating dual-perspective rendering of a young woman determined to find out the truth behind her mother's murder.
NEWSWEEK

Scott poignantly evokes both a mother trapped by the choices made for her and a daughter learning to deal with her own precarious freedom. She clearly defines the unfortunate effects of the traditional Japanese legal system on women, and with carefully accumulated details describes a Japan both physically and psychologically teetering on the edge of change.
BOOKLIST

Remember that new-discovery, time-stopping, every-moment-is-magical kind of love? That's what it felt like to read this novel. Then limerence turns to passion which leads to tragedy and suddenly this book is impossible to put down as you speed toward a conclusion that is as surprising as it is satisfying.
Jamie Ford, New York Times bestselling author of HOTEL ON THE CORNER OF BITTER AND SWEET

Stephanie Scott has achieved that rare thing in her debut - a literary love story that reads like an assured thriller.
Compelling, moving and intense, What's Left of Me is Yours reminds us that love is never without its dark side, families are never without secrets, and the deepest loss contains a seed of hope - if it can be found

Stephanie Scott's story of a woman's murder sweeps the reader into a world in which love is fused with betrayal and truth is locked away. Beautiful, delicate and brutal, What's Left Of Me Is Yours is difficult to put down, impossible to forget.
Marti Leimbach, bestselling author of DANIEL ISN'T TALKING