SICK AT HEART by Melissa Jones

Alex's mother is his first love. Throughout his isolated boyhood in the south of France he protects her, worships her, hates her, keeps her murderous secrets. When she rejects him and marries, he returns to school in England. At seventeen he is profoundly damaged; he is also charming, funny, handsome, ambitious, looking for a woman he can mould and shape, one who will never betray him.

Alex tells his story in letters: the first to his 'remote, fragile, extraordinary mother', the second to his gentle, correct wife, Susannah, 'you slipped through my fingers like water', and the third to his lover, 17-year-old Kitty, the 'brilliant, talented and exquisite' girl. Alex is a man for whom to love means to seek to annihilate. He writes with the unfathomable, rational calm of the deranged mind as the line between obsessive love and extreme hatred blurs, then disappears. 

Soft cover, good condition. Rubber stamp and pen inscription on the front page. The cover shows very minor signs of wear.