Manipulated Lives

Having previously read Leuschel's stand-alone novella, My Sweet Friend, I was keen to experience more work from this author and delighted to get a copy of Manipulated Lives. The five stories in this collection explore narcissistic personalities from the points of view of these people's victims, the narcissists themselves and, in my favourite story, My Perfect Child, in the words of a mother who blames herself for her son's abusive behaviour. I love Leuschel's ability not only to understand human behaviour and motivation, but also to put this knowledge across to readers without her stories feeling at all like lectures or preaching. It helps that she has a deft hand for characterisation whether that be portraying an elderly, isolated care home resident (in Tess And Tattoos) or a naive teenager's first love (in Runaway Girl). These chilling stories are gripping reading in their own right, and I like that they can also serve almost as a kind of morality tale showing us potentially intimidating behaviours to be on the lookout for in other people and also how we might be subconsciously attracting narcissistic personalities to ourselves.