The Plunge

“A tantalizing thriller written in nuanced and luminous prose, The Plunge is a deep dive into loss, longing, and the price of passion. Lila writes with a singular power that comes from her understanding of the twists and turns of the complexities of female desire. I was immersed from the first to the last page.”—Daphne Merkin, author of 22 Minutes of Unconditional Love “The Plunge is a tremendous debut novel—gripping, enthralling and sneakily profound—written with great brio and assuredness.”—William Boyd, bestselling author of Any Human Heart“The Plunge is a sophisticated thriller that envelops the reader in secrets—secrets that stimulate and alleviate the narrator’s fear and inertia. But the strain of pretenses and the constant adaptation they require lead to dangerous entanglements here. The narrator, adept at transforming suffering into pleasure, reminds us that the past is a kind of prophecy.”—Susanna Moore, author of The Lost Wife“A startling and smoldering debut that thrums with suspense. The Plunge is a brilliantly crafted study of desire, deception, and the traumatic edges of womanhood that pulls you into its emotional undertow. Raicek will leave you gasping for air long after the final sentence.”—Christina McDowell, author of The Cave Dwellers “The it girl novel of the summer. Like a cult euro-chic thriller, The Plunge is seductive, disquieting, and reveals the dark undercurrents roiling beneath its gleaming surfaces. Raicek writes with a playwright’s propulsive sense of dramatic tension that can make you laugh one page and cry the next—a stunning new voice.”—Marisa Meltzer, author of It Girl: The Life and Legacy of Jane Birkin“The Plunge has a villa full of the most scintillating and malevolently eroticized characters since the cunning aristocrats of Les Liaisons Dangereuses. Raicek’s literary debut is thrilling, hypnotic, and whip-smart.”—Griffin Dunne, author of The Friday Afternoon Club“Acclaimed playwright Raicek’s debut novel is a twisty, tense psychological thriller, tantalizingly sexy and explosively unnerving.”—Booklist“A lush erotic-entanglement novel.”—Library Journal“Raicek polishes her prose to a fine gloss… a wildly sensational experience. Full of artifice, it pays tribute to ‘the razor’s edge between desire and doom.’ A tantalizing romantic triangle with more than a hint of menace.”—Kirkus

Lila Raicek is a New York-based playwright and screenwriter. Her hit new play My Master Builder debuted in London’s West End in 2025, starring Ewan McGregor and Elizabeth Debicki. She holds a BA in creative writing from Barnard College, and an MFA in playwriting from Columbia University. The Plunge is her first novel.