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Outside Valentine
Outside Valentine
Jan 13, 2026 12:42 PM

Author:Liza Ward

Outside Valentine

In 1958, as the snow fell across Nebraska, 19-year-old Charlie Starkweather and his 14-year-old girlfriend, Caril Ann, climbed into a stolen car and blazed into history with a string of bloody murders that stunned America. But why, over thirty years later, does Lowell, a Manhattan antiques collector, still dream of what happened? And who is Puggy, the young girl obsessed by the murders? And then there's Caril Ann's version of the story - from the day she first met Charlie to the end of their rampage on a farm outside the town of Valentine.

Disturbing and intense, Outside Valentine is a story of devastating losses and the transforming power of love.

Reviews

Compelling... captivating. A must-read

—— I-D

A haunting and striking account of the imagined inner lives of real people caught up in terrible events

—— Daily Mail

Impeccably drawn...astonishingly poetic yet palpable prose

—— Elle

Well-written and chilling

—— Uncut

Wickedly funny... Warner can combine literary style with go-anywhere demotic humour... Like St Trinians with condoms and male nudity

—— Independent

More wild fun from the outrageously talented bright young thing

—— Scotsman

This is the most profound of Warner's books

—— Guardian

I re-read the "Dance" every five years or so and always find something new – the world has changed but the characters are evergreen. Everybody has a Widmerpool in their life.

—— Daisy Goodwin

He has wit, style, and panache, in a world where those qualities are in permanently short supply

—— The New York Review of Books

A book which creates a world and explores it in depth, which ponders changing relationships and values, which creates brilliantly living and diverse characters and then watches them grow and change in their milieu ... Powell's world is as large and as complex as Proust's.

—— New York Times

[A] comic masterpiece

—— Irish Times

Comic, satisfying, thought-provoking, addictive

—— The Telegraph

It's his supreme skill in mastering a lengthily interwoven chronicle, the evolution of such a range and variety of pin-point characters, the wit and the cultural ambition that give the novel a unique place in English Literature.

—— Melvyn Bragg

It's full of insights and recognisable characters. Remarkable.

—— Loyd Grossman , Daily Express

Wonderfully observed and true, funny, stylistically dazzling and soothing and long enough to take one through any lockdown.

—— Matthew Kneale , The Times

A passionate, hilarious look at mid-twentieth-century Britain.

—— Jeremy Paxman , Gentleman's Journal

Something I know I love ... Anthony Powell's A Dance to the Music of Time, which I could read endlessly.

—— Tracey Thorn , Daily Mail

I’m bowled over, hooked and, hurrah, there are 11 more volumes to go as Jenkins grows up. Terrific.

—— Daily Mail

A highly accomplished debut, this is a chilling portrait of racial tension, social immorality, betrayal and love, and also an atmospheric examination of the end of innocence.

—— The Lady Magazine

The writing is strong and though the sections featuring Gay's earlier life lose momentum, the story picks up pace when the girls' paths become entwined and the conclusion is compelling and thrillingly macabre.

—— Telegraph

This fictional account of a true story gives a darkly shocking version of the events surrounding this tragic case.

—— Good Book Guide

Brilliantly melds a factual post-war murder into a dark fictional tale

—— Telegraph
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