The Rocks (Nichols) - Book Reviews

Book Reviews
The Rocks is a tragic double romance, told in reverse, primarily set on Mallorca. Superficially, it's a sort of mash-up of Jim Crace's Being Dead and Jess Walter's Beautiful Ruins. It begins in 2005 and runs back through time all the way to 1948, retracing the events precipitated by the novel's "inciting incident," whose final repercussion opens the book. This might sound confusing, but it isn't, because Nichols has a firm grasp of the chronology and a clear sense of control over the novel's trajectory and purpose: to illuminate the wreckage of romantic love and the end of a marriage, and, finally, to reveal the mystery at the heart of its death.
Kate Christensen - New York Times Book Review


Mr. Nichols takes the reader on a 400-page odyssey that includes a crooked real-estate deal, a hair-raising drug run in Morocco and enough sexual encounters to keep the summer beach reader breathlessly turning the page. Throughout it all, Mr. Nichols’s writing is witty and erudite.
Wall Street Journal


It’s the perfect beach read, with romance, mystery, humor, and drama all set on a tiny island in the Mediterranean Sea.
Boston Globe


We hear the rueful hum of real life, full of possibilities seized but mostly missed. And we grow wealthier by the page.
USA Today


[What] smart, sexy summer lit is invariably made of.... The Rocks has all the requisite romance and intrigue of good melodrama—and its settings are so postcard-gorgeous you can almost taste the sea spray and cold horchata—but there’s real wit and substance in his storytelling. Think of it as a beach read you’ll respect in the morning.
Entertainment Weekly


This page-turner will transport readers to the sunny community of expats at a glamorous seaside resort, where mystery, love, and family legacy are all fiercely intertwined.
Harper's Bazaar


[The Rocks is] constructed to keep the reader guessing..... So we keep turning the pages not to discover what will happen, but to find out what has already occurred. Along the way, there are sumptuous lunches served on yachts, exotic couples met while traveling in Morocco, older women seducing much younger men.
Oprah Magazine


(Starred review.) [T]wo central stories engage the readers’ sympathies and emotions, while Nichols colors in the background with the...louche exploits of the careless adults and the tanned teenagers who...have a harder time growing up beyond the endless summer.
Publishers Weekly


The problem is that Lulu is mostly unlikable....there's something disturbed about Lulu.... [R]eaders hoping for [a] winsome, humorous, hopeful love story will be disappointed. Nichols has written more of a tragedy, with the only glimmer of light coming in the final pages. —Christine Perkins, Whatcom Cty. Lib. Syst., Bellingham, WA
Library Journal


(Starred review.) Nichols deftly melds comedy and compassion, and his rendering of his Mediterranean setting will have readers packing their bags.
Booklist


(Starred review.) As intoxicating as a long afternoon sitting at the bar at The Rocks.... All of it is absolutely riveting, leaving the reader desperate to depart immediately for swoony Mallorca.... Nichols' expertise on everything from the Odyssey to olive oil to classic movies enriches the story, as does his profound understanding of his screwed-up cast of characters.... A literary island vacation with a worldly, wonderfully salacious storyteller.
Kirkus Reviews