And Haynes goes into painstakingly realistic detail to show how much the OCD affects Catherine’s daily living. Along the way, she meets a guy named Lee, a good-looking, muscular guy who is intense, but it comes across doting at first.įast-forward to 2007, and Catherine is suffering from obsessive compulsive disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder because of what Lee did to her, although we’re still not quite privy to all the details.

She’s outgoing, bubbly, talkative, confident and extroverted.

So, the novel follows Catherine, a 20-something partygoer in England, who enjoys clubbing with her girlfriends and having a good time with men. I’ve tried NaNoWriMo a few times, all unsuccessful attempts, but it was still inspiring to read a book that was created out of that experience. This debut novel came of that experience. And interestingly enough, and inspiring to me, she wrote the book as part of National Novel Writing Month! That’s the annual writing event, which actually kicks off at midnight, where writers all over the world try to write a novel, or 50,000 words, in the month of November. Elizabeth Haynes’ debut 2011 novel, Into the Darkest Corner, hit all of those notes for me. My library copy of Into the Darkest Corner by Elizabeth Haynes.ĭomestic violent situations are difficult to read about because it’s so enraging, so frustrating and makes you feel a way, as a reader, that you don’t want to feel! That is, vengeful.

In the darkest corner book