The Cocoa Bookclub
Meet the Author: Emma van Straaten, This Immaculate Body

Sunday 28 June, 10.30am
Venue: Dice & a Slice, 37 Queen St, Colchester, CO1 2PQ (wheelchair accessible)

The Cocoa Bookclub is Red Lion Books’ under 30s Book Club which meet on the last Sunday of the month at 10.30am.  They gather at a local independent café with a drink and a snack (included in the book club price) where everyone discusses their opinion of the book. Each member receives an individual book club question regarding the book, to ponder on and discuss at the meeting.

At this special Book Club event as part of Essex Book Festival, attendees can meet the author of this month’s book – Emma van Straaten, This Immaculate Body.

This event will include an audience Q&A and after the event there will be an opportunity to get your book signed.

Please note as this is a Book Club event there is an assumption that the audience has read the book and this event may include spoilers for the book.

Tickets: £16.99 includes a drink, snack, the book and a spot in the book club.
Book tickets at redlionbooks.co.uk

If you would like more information about The Cocoa Book Club, visit Red Lion Books, DM The Cocoa Bookclub @cocoabookclub or email us@redlionbooks.co.uk for more information.

This Immaculate Body by Emma van Straaten

Can you climb inside a stranger’s life and make him love you?

Alice has been cleaning Tom’s flat every Wednesday for a year. With every smudge wiped from his coffee cup, every crease smoothed out in his bed, every multivitamin counted from the jar, Alice spirals deeper into infatuation. But as Alice prepares for the moment when they will finally meet face-to-face, she discovers that love might not be the cure she thought it was.

This Immaculate Body is a story of obsession, of the way women view the world and the ways that the world views them. As Alice frantically tries to cling to an imagined future with Tom, the line between fantasy and reality become ever more blurred, putting everything she has dreamed of at risk.

Emma van Straaten

Emma van Straaten is a writer of British-Mauritian heritage living in London with her husband and two daughters. In 2021, days after her first daughter was born, she won the Discoveries Prize (run by the Women’s Prize Trust in partnership with Curtis Brown and Curtis Brown Creative) and has been writing whenever she can, ever since. Her debut novel, This Immaculate Body (also published as Creep in the USA) was published in February 2025. She is currently working on her second novel.