Lucy Ashe is an English teacher. After training at the Royal Ballet School, she decided to change career plans and go to university. She studied English literature at St. Hugh's College, Oxford, before receiving her teaching qualification. Ashe's poetry and short stories have been published in a number of literary journals, and she was shortlisted for the 2020 Impress Prize for New Writers.

"A chilling exploration of physical and psychological boundaries that exposes how the therapeutic relationship can blur the lines of sanity and of who is responsible when everything unravels."--Nicole Nehrig, clinical and research psychologist and author of With Her Own Hands: Women Weaving their Stories

"Ashe draws readers in with this seductive story...Evocative, empathetic, and ultimately empowering, this coiled psychological thriller will be catnip for fans of Alex Michaelides."--Publishers Weekly, STARRED

"The story's intimate scope allows Ashe to focus on the intense relationships... [readers] will be quickly immersed in this intense read."--Library Journal

"Packed with colorful details of the swinging sixties, this twisty psychological exploration of marriage, deception, and desire will keep readers off-balance until the last page. An original and perceptive thriller, The Model Patient is full of deep, dark surprises."--Lynda Cohen Loigman, USA Today Bestselling author of The Matchmaker's Gift and The Love Elixir of Augusta Stern

"The Model Patient begins as an elegant domestic drama and builds, quietly and inexorably, into a darkly devastating psychological thriller. Lucy Ashe writes with passion, precision, and a rare understanding of how love and fear can blur into each other."--Brian Platzer, author of The Body Politic

"Crackling with tension and rife with ingenious plot twists, Ashe's latest is an exploration of friendship, marriage, and female objectification, set against the backdrop of 1960s London. Nothing is as it seems in this absorbing psychological thriller--and you won't be able to put it down."--Fiona Davis, New York Times bestselling author of The Stolen Queen

"[A] gripping historical psychological thriller. . . . What starts as a story about a woman trapped by societal expectations evolves into a dark exploration of manipulation and desire, building to a conclusion that will keep readers on edge until the end. . . . Ashe excels at immersive world-building. . . . But beneath the atmospheric setting lies a provocative examination of transference and obsession."--Amita Parikh, international bestselling author of The Circus Train

Publisher: Union Square & Co.

Pub date: 2026-04-14

Length: 352 pages