DuPlessis, Lauren - Tender

Twenty-five-year-old Nell has curated a perfect museum of the self: early accolades in her career as an archaeobotanist, a pastel Instagram filled with flowers, and a consistent manicure routine to give a veneer of control. But there has always been a part of her that doesn’t fit the mask of perfection she wears. When two ‘bog bodies’ are discovered in elaborate floral graves in a Somerset fen, Nell gets the opportunity of a lifetime to excavate and uncover their secrets. But the deeper she digs into the fertile, waterlogged mud, the more she uncovers repressed memories of her unsettled childhood and strained relationship with her sister… and the more her body manifests her own wildness in ways she can’t ignore. Under the pressure of a blazing summer, Nell whirlwinds into a heated but toxic romance, intense friendships, and the brutal process of reconciling her past and her future before the weight of it all buries her, too. Blending folkloric horror and an exploration of womanhood, against a background of eco-anxiety, Tender beautifully depicts the quiet violence of overcoming and accepting our darkest sides.