Dark Mode Launch with Ashley Kalagian Blunt

Is it paranoia – or is someone watching?

Reagan Carsen knows how to keep herself safe – keep the door bolted, stay off the internet and never, ever talk to the police. But when a serial killer starts targeting women who look exactly like her, Reagan is forced to confront the dark events in her past.

Inspired by true crimes, such as the Black Dahlia murder, Dark Mode reimagines them for the modern age, weaving the insidious nature of living in an online world into the crimes to create a creeping, suffocating sense of terror for readers. 

Fascinated by the psychology behind crime – who commits them, how they’re investigated and what they tell us about society – Ashley was compelled to write a thriller that explores this in detail. Through her research, Ashley delved into the dark web and discovered how terrifyingly easy it is for our personal information to be discovered and used against us. Combining this with the growing subculture of incels and men’s right activists on the web, Ashley has created a modern thriller that speaks to how deeply the lines between the online world and reality have blurred. 

Set over a sweltering summer, Dark Mode is a fresh, riveting thriller that highlights the price we pay for surrending our privacy one click at a time. After all, once you’re online there’s nowhere to hide ...

About Ashley

Ashley Kalagian Blunt is the author of How to Be Australian and My Name Is Revenge. Her writing appears in the Sydney Morning Herald, Overland, Griffith Review, Sydney Review of Books, Australian Book Review, Kill Your Darlings and more. Ashley teaches creative writing and co-hosts James and Ashley Stay at Home, a podcast about writing, creativity and health. Originally from Canada, she has lived and worked in South Korea, Peru and Mexico.

About Anna

Anna Downes was born and raised in Sheffield, UK, but now lives just north of Sydney, Australia with her husband and two children. She worked as an actress before turning her attention to writing and appeared in BBC TV shows such as Eastenders, Casualty, Holby City, and Dalziel and Pascoe, as well as a long-running stage production of "The Dresser" in London's West End. She has degrees from both Manchester University (Drama) and RADA (Acting). She has been published in the Zodiac Literary Review, shortlisted for the Sydney Writers Room Short Story Prize and longlisted for the Margaret River Short Story Competition. The Safe Place was inspired by Anna’s experiences working as a live-in housekeeper on a remote French estate in 2009-10.