Breathing On Glass

Rhea - dark, intense and brilliant - and her golden, voluptuous sister Amber are not alike, but they are bound tighter than most: by love, by the loss of their father, and by the man who stands between them. Lewis is Amber's husband and the ferociously driven director of the biotech lab where Rhea is a rising star. In search of funding, academic advancement and in alchemical pursuit of the perfect stem cell - their Holy Grail in one flawlessly reproducing genetic blueprint - Rhea and Lewis inhabit a rarefied world. Putting their trust in science, they are blinkered against the fatal human element: sex and envy, treachery and error. Amber, however, desperate for a child and embarking on fertility treatment, must confront precisely this flawed physicality, and a Faustian pact is forged. As the three are increasingly drawn into a transgressive relationship, the result is a series of betrayals that none, finally, will be able to forgive. Breathing on Glass is both coolly analytical and erotically subversive in its exploration of passion and power intertwined, and breeds a whole DNA sequence of cautionary tales: on weakness, temptation, ambition and the limits of science.

Memorable ... this cautionary tale goes enjoyably more rogue at every turn Independent With PhDs in biochemistry and creative writing, Cryer is well placed to take on the unliterary subject of stem cell research and turn it into compelling fiction... Cryer's sensual precision works best when this part thriller, part domestic tangle deals with science -- Catherine Taylor Guardian 20120630 'In her gripping tale of laboratories and latex gloves, scientific one-upmanship and sibling rivalry, Jennifer Cryer puts the sex into medical research - and gives the classic love triangle a thrillingly modern twist' -- Genevieve Fox Daily Mail

Jennifer Cryer was born and grew up in a Northumbrian mining village. Married, she nows lives in South Wales. After studying Biochemistry and working in hospital, university and industrial laboratories, she also completed a PhD in creative writing and has combined these two interests in her first novel.