I read a book a week, and most eventually blur together. My favorites are the ones that stick with me—like this one. I especially liked Nicky, who’s invited by a renowned mystery writer to write his life story. Once she’s settled in his mansion, she starts uncovering secrets surrounding the unsolved disappearance of his first wife and son twenty years ago. The twist at the end is stunning.
For fans of Knives Out comes a spellbinding thriller from the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller The Woman in the Window
“I’ll be dead in three months. Come tell my story.”
So writes Sebastian Trapp, reclusive mystery novelist, to his longtime correspondent Nicky Hunter, an expert in detective fiction. With mere months to live, Trapp invites Nicky to his spectacular San Francisco mansion to help draft his life story . . . while living alongside his beautiful second wife, Diana; his wayward nephew, Freddy; and his protective daughter, Madeleine. Soon Nicky finds herself caught in an irresistible…
I loved this book because Delia, the protagonist, is so well-drawn. She isn’t likable, but the hope that she might learn from her mistakes kept me hooked. Nugent skillfully raises my hopes, only to crush them again. Although Delia is self-aware, she just can’t seem to change. Her one redeeming feature is her beauty—yet beauty only goes so far. Read the book to discover if she ultimately redeems herself. Her fate at the end is both surprising and unique.
This final novel by the late Paul Auster is one that both older readers and younger readers with aging parents will appreciate. It follows the endearing Sy Baumgartner, a 70-year-old philosophy professor, still mourning his wife, who passed away ten years ago. His memory is slipping, his body isn’t what it used to be, and he’s lonely. I laughed aloud at the funny parts and got misty-eyed at the poignant ones. The ending leaves room for interpretation—a great topic for discussion with other readers.
A taut yet expansive novel of love, memory, and grief from Paul Auster, best-selling, award-winning author and “one of the great American prose stylists of our time" – New York Times
Paul Auster’s brilliant eighteenth novel opens with a scorched pot of water, which Sy Baumgartner -- phenomenologist, noted author, and soon-to-be retired philosophy professor – has just forgotten on the stove.
Baumgartner’s life had been defined by his deep, abiding love for his wife, Anna, who was killed in a swimming accident nine years earlier. Now 71, Baumgartner continues to struggle to live in her absence as the novel…
What You Made Me Do is a thriller packed with dark family secrets. Willem Veldkamp has a miserable childhood, thanks to his domineering mother. When she vanishes without a trace, one nightmare ends, but another begins.
Then there’s little Anneliese Bakker, who survives her own troubled childhood. She leaves home as soon as she can, vowing never to return. Fast forward to adulthood. Willem and Anneliese meet, fall head over heels in love and get engaged. Yet they keep silent about the darkness in their pasts. A mistake. Because if there’s one thing about secrets, it’s that they surface at the worst possible moment.
