The Lovers

The Lovers is an arresting tale, a mystery with a low burn tension, which revolves around the disappearance of Lucie Bruyère. The novel unveils the truth about her charismatic yet subtly controlling partner, the world-famous artist Ernest Renfield. The suspenseful story, both police investigation and multi-voiced Rashomon, ends in a dramatic and powerful illumination.

'I found The Lovers utterly compelling. This impeccably crafted novel told from multiple perspectives offers the page-turning suspense of a mystery while resisting easy resolution. It is ultimately a meditation on making art: the cost it exacts and the solace it brings.' — Michelle de Kretser

'…this year already has an outpouring of art-inspired Australian fiction. Here is some of the best...The least flattering portrait of a painter is in The Lovers, an intriguing and elegant short novel by French-born Catherine Rey.' — Susan Wyndham, LOOK Magazine

'The Lovers is a brilliantly structured whodunnit msytery. It begins as Lucie Bruyere has disappeared from the secluded mansion of her partner, the eccentric painter Ernest Renfield...This elegant novel is less about Lucie's disappearance than, as one character puts it, the mystery of why 'pain prevents us from loving'.' — H C Gildfind, Good Reading Magazine