Hex – A novel about obsession, complicated relationships, and poison (Paperback)

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Nell Barber has been expelled from her PhD programme but refuses to step away from her work. Living alone, she dedicates herself to studying poisonous plants, testing the narrow boundary between harm and cure with an intensity that borders on self erasure. Her intellectual centre of gravity remains Dr Joan Kallas, her former mentor, whose confidence and authority continue to exert a powerful pull.

Around them gathers a small, unstable circle. An ex lover, a closest friend, a husband who does not quite see what is happening in his own home. Desire and ambition slide into rivalry and fixation as professional lives bleed into private ones. On campus, small choices begin to reverberate.

At home, Nell fills her flat with toxic specimens and keeps meticulous notebooks addressed to Joan. Research notes drift into confession, observation into longing. Hex is a novel about obsession disguised as devotion, and about the way love can be organised, studied, and still remain uncontrollable. It traces the slow, intimate mechanics of fixation, asking what happens when admiration becomes a form of devotion, and devotion tips quietly into danger.