> Skip to content
Read an extract
Play sample
  • Published: 25 March 2025
  • ISBN: 9781804947906
  • Imprint: Penguin
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 400
  • RRP: $22.99

Breaking the Dark

A Jessica Jones Marvel Crime Novel




Prepare to be hooked: No. 1 Sunday Times bestselling author Lisa Jewell launches the Marvel Crime program with an original story of Jessica Jones.

Meet Jessica Jones: a private investigator and retired super hero based out of Hell's Kitchen, Manhattan, who goes from job to job as a hard living, rough talking, loner.

And then a wealthy Upper East Side woman pays her a visit. Amber Randall is concerned about her twin sixteen-year-olds, Lark and Fox, who have acted and looked very different since they returned from spending the summer with their British father in the UK. She tells Jessica that her children have unnaturally perfect skin for teenagers and have lost all the tics and habits that made them who they were. They are not Lark and Fox, she tells Jessica. Something has happened to them.

To find out more, Jessica travels to Essex to talk to their father and once there meets Belle who is living a curiously isolated existence in a run-down farmhouse with her guardian Debra. Jessica knows that Lark and Fox had spent the summer with Belle—but can this unworldly teenager really be responsible for Lark and Fox's new personas?

Jessica soon discovers that, behind Belle and Debra, evil geniuses are playing a dangerous game with technology in order to make the world a "better place", not caring who gets hurt, maimed or even killed in the process. Can Jessica stop them from wreaking destruction on a whole generation of young people?

Nothing is certain in Lisa Jewell's gripping and most imaginative novel yet.

Breaking the Dark, the first book in the brand-new Marvel Crime series, introduces fans to a grittier, street-level side of the Marvel Universe, and will continue with original novels featuring fan-favorite characters like Luke Cage, written by S.A. Cosby, and Daredevil, written by Alex Segura.
___________

‘Tricksy, endlessly interesting and pure entertainment, don’t miss this one.' Gillian McAllister
‘Fresh, lively, insightful—and the action scenes hit like a chop. A really cracking story.' AJ Finn
‘Classic Lisa Jewell with an amazing twist!’ Jenny Colgan
'Reveals the depth and complexity of one of the most fascinating and indomitable characters in the Marvel canon.' S. A. Cosby

  • Published: 25 March 2025
  • ISBN: 9781804947906
  • Imprint: Penguin
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 400
  • RRP: $22.99

About the author

Lisa Jewell

Lisa Jewell was born in London. Her first novel, Ralph’s Party, was the bestselling debut novel of 1999. Since then she has published another sixteen novels, most recently a number of dark psychological thrillers, including The Girls and Then She Was Gone (both of which were Richard & Judy Book Club picks) as well as I Found You and Watching You. Lisa is a top ten New York Times and number one Sunday Times bestselling author who has been published worldwide in over twenty-five languages. She lives in north London with her husband, two daughters, two cats, two guinea pigs and the best dog in the world.

Also by Lisa Jewell

See all
penguin pop image
penguin pop image