A NEW book set in Stourbridge is tipped for the top and has already been likened to best-sellers Gone Girl and Girl on a Train.

The Black Country, by teacher turned author Kerry Hadley-Pryce, has been receiving rave reviews from some high-profile literary names and it hasn't even hit the book stores yet.

Described as deserving "to be up there with the likes of Gone Girl and The Girl on the Train" by online book reviewer Andrew Angel - the story is a psychological thriller about a professional couple on the verge of separation whose lives start to unravel after they flee the scene of a car accident following a party.

Told by an unknown narrator, the dark tale follows estate agent Maddie and husband Harry, a teacher who had a fling with a schoolgirl, as secrets from their past begin to haunt their present.

Kerry, a 54-year-old mum-of-five, wrote the book as part of her course while studying for an MA in creative writing at Manchester Metropolitan University and it was soon snapped up by Salt Publishing - the publishing house behind author Alison Moore, whose debut novel The Lighthouse was nominated for the 2012 Man Booker Prize.

Moore herself has already heaped praise on her literary publishing colleague - describing The Black Country as a book which "begs to be read in one go"; and M John Harrison, author of sci-fi novel Light, describes it as "obliquely yet menacingly told, increasingly horrific, and full of humour as dark as its title."

Kerry, a former Redhill English teacher who lives in Parkfield Road, said it was a "pretty amazing" feeling to receive such compliments and she added: "I couldn't be more pleased with how it's gone."

She added: "I enjoyed writing it. It felt like it wrote itself."

No stranger to storytelling - Kerry previously self-published her first novel The Chameleon Room in 2008 plus an anthology of short fiction stories called Fifty One Ways to Leave Your Lover in 2012.

But The Black Country, which is due for release on September 15, marks her debut with a major publisher.

The book, which can be bought from all major High Street and online book sellers, will be officially launched at Scary Canary in Stourbridge High Street on Thursday October 8, at an event starting at 7pm.