NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF 2024 BY VOGUE, NYLON, NPR, PURE WOW, SHONDALAND, BOOK RIOT and more!
In the vein of Luster and Queenie, an unflinching portrayal of high-paid sex work in the age of the internet-an intoxicating, bold debut from a dazzling new voice.
Sugar, Baby follows Agnes, a mixed-race 21-year-old whose life seems to be heading nowhere. Still living at home, she works as a cleaner and spends all her money in clubs on the weekends searching for distractions from her mundane life. That is until she meets Emily, daughter of one of her cleaning clients, who lives in London and works as a model . . . and a sugar baby, dating rich older men for money.
Emily's life is the escape Agnes has been longing for-extravagant tasting menus, champagne on tap, glamorous hotels with unlimited room service, designer gifts from dates who call her beautiful. But this new lifestyle is the last straw for her religious mother Constance.
Kicked out of her family home, Agnes moves in with Emily and the other sugar babies in their fancy London flat and is drawn deeper and deeper into their world. But these women come from money: they possess a safety net Agnes does not. And as she is thrown from one precarious relationship to the next-a married man who wants to show off the glamourous, exotic girl on his arm; a Russian billionaire's wife who makes Agnes central to a sex party in Miami-she finds herself searching for fulfillment just as desperately as she was before.
A compelling journey of self-discovery that offers sharp commentary on race, beauty, and class, Sugar, Baby is an electric, original, spellbinding novel that will keep readers turning the pages until the very end.
BIO
Celine Saintclare, described as ‘one to watch’ by Publisher’s Weekly, is a Buckinghamshire based author of English and Caribbean descent. She is motivated to write as a way of exploring the complexities of her own identity and to tell stories about society’s transgressors. She has written for VOGUE magazine and her debut novel ‘Sugar,Baby’ has been featured in Harper’s Bazaar, NPR, ELLE magazine, gal-dem, and reviewed in Publisher’s Weekly and Kirkus Reviews.
REVIEWS
“Saintclare uses the aesthetics of key bumps and designer handbags to poke at class, sex, labor and power.” -- NPR.org
"To describe Sugar, Baby as a book ahead of its time feels almost unfairly reductive, considering how smart and thought-provoking a narrative Saintclare has crafted . . . Touching on topics ranging from sex work to race and privilege, Sugar, Baby is entrancing from start to finish." -- Shondaland
“This is a steamy and spellbinding story that will leave you hot under the collar, but also provide a sense of hopefulness regarding our own autonomy over this world . . . Sexiness sells, but the author's sensitive portrayal of sexuality is what makes this book stand out.” -- Debutiful
“This is a propulsive read that tackles myriad attitudes toward sex work, from condemnation to celebration, through a distinctly feminist lens. Accompanying the partying with perceptive social commentary, Saintclare refuses to romanticize the gritty details of sugaring-inviting the reader into a whirlwind of champagne, sex, and money that is at times claustrophobic, scary, and toxic. Saintclare modernizes outdated sex-work narratives, honoring the bonds formed between women instead.” -- Kirkus Reviews
“Hot Mess Heroine is one of my favorite sub-genres, and this debut promises all the deliciously trifling and raggedy antics that protagonists in books like The Guest, Luster, and Queenie deliver.” -- Book Riot
[H] Bloomsbury Publishing / January 09, 2024
0.94" H x 9.5" L x 6.38" W (1.22 lbs) 304 pages