Isserley spends most of her time driving along empty, winding Highland roads in her red Toyota. She is interested in hitchhikers — so long as they are male, well-muscled and alone. But once she has coaxed them into her car, what she does to them is truly astonishing. Meeting Isserley is only the beginning of their journey, and a gateway to a new world. Cutting across different genres, Under the Skin is a wildly inventive, bold and beautifully written book that launched Michel Faber's international career and was shortlisted for the Whitbread First Book Award. And in Isserley, Faber created one of the most memorable and singular heroines of modern times.

Step into Victorian London and meet our heroine, Sugar — a young woman trying to drag herself up from the gutter any way she can — and the host of unforgettable characters that make up her world.