“The soul has always struck me as being a tricky thing to keep with the body: an easily bored aristocrat with the means to leave whenever it wished.”
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀


Celeste Price is a 26-year-old eighth grade teacher with looks that could kill, a fancy car, a nice house and is married to a wealthy policeman. Underneath that facade of perfection, Celeste preys on teenage boys and nothing will get in her way.

Celeste carefully crafts a plan to seduce her fourteen-year-old student, Jack. She understands the consequences of her actions and will do anything to keep her illicit relationship a secret. Celeste uses manipulation and seniority to get what she wants with no remorse for anyone she harms along the way.

Nutting fearlessly places the reader inside the mind of a vile pedophile. Celeste’s character is repulsive and she constantly tries to justify her actions. Tampa is a disturbing, controversial read but it is also a brilliant examination of culturally constructed gender norms, beauty, misogyny and sexuality.