Late in the Day
Tessa Hadley, 2018
HarperCollins
288 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780062476692
Summary
Alexandr and Christine and Zachary and Lydia have been friends since they first met in their twenties.
Thirty years later, Alex and Christine are spending a leisurely summer’s evening at home when they receive a call from a distraught Lydia: she is at the hospital. Zach is dead.
In the wake of this profound loss, the three friends find themselves unmoored; all agree that Zach, with his generous, grounded spirit, was the irreplaceable one they couldn’t afford to lose.
Inconsolable, Lydia moves in with Alex and Christine.
But instead of loss bringing them closer, the three of them find over the following months that it warps their relationships, as old entanglements and grievances rise from the past, and love and sorrow give way to anger and bitterness.
Late in the Day explores the complex webs at the center of our most intimate relationships, to expose how, beneath the seemingly dependable arrangements we make for our lives, lie infinite alternate configurations.
Ingeniously moving between past and present and through the intricacies of her characters’ thoughts and interactions, Tessa Hadley once again "crystallizes the atmosphere of ordinary life in prose somehow miraculous and natural"—Washington Post. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—February 28, 1956
• Where—Bristol, England, UK
• Education—B.A., Cambridge University
• Currently—lives in London, England
Tessa Hadley is a British author born and raised in Bristol, England. Her father was a teacher who loved jazz, and her mother, a homemaker who loved painting. Her family was not devoid of literary chops: Hadley's uncle is the noted London playwright Peter Nichols.
As a girl, Tessa read extensively. She studied literature at Cambridge, which she found a "chilly, funny, odd place. Nursing idealistic dreams of changing lives, she decided to become a teacher.
It was a complete disaster. I was 23. I went to a rough comprehensive. I was political: I wanted to bring light where there was darkness. All that rubbish. I was hopeless. The kids ran rings around me. I cried on my way to school every morning.
Her misfortunes as a teacher sapped Hadley of her confidence to become an author. Additionally, two other major life events took over: marriage and children. Having attempted a book early on, it took another 23 years, plus three children and three stepchildren, before publishing her first novel in 2002. That book, Accidents in the Home, was longlisted for The Guardian First Book Award.
In addition to six novels (see below) she has two volumes of short stories, both of which were New York Times Notable Books. Her stories appear regularly in The New Yorker.
Hadley lives in London.
Books
2002 - Accidents in the Home
2003 - Everything Will Be All Right
2007 - The Master Bedroom
2007 - Sunstroke: and Other Stories
2011 - The London Train
2012 - Married Love: and Other Stories
2013 - Clever Girl
2016 - The Past
2018 - Late in the Day
(Author bio adapted from interview in the Independent, 5/25/2013, and from the publisher.)
Book Reviews
[B]rilliant and upsetting.… In the hands of a lesser novelist, the intricate tangle of lives at the center of Late in the Day might feel like… sly narrative machinations. Because this is Tessa Hadley, it instead feels earned and real and, even in its smallest nuances, important.… Hadley is adept at fluid omniscience, at storytelling that skims through the years as easily as it weaves through various points of view.… I'm not the first to compare [her] to Virginia Woolf… and Late in the Day calls to mind, in particular, Woolf's The Waves in its circling around a magnetic central character…whose absence becomes the book's main character.… It's in part Hadley's unflinching dissection of moments and states of consciousness that makes the Woolf comparisons irresistible, but it's also her commitment to following digressions both mental and philosophical… rather than pushing away at plot.… It's to her great credit that Hadley manages to be old-fashioned and modernist and brilliantly postmodern all at once…unlocking age-old mysteries in ways both revelatory and inevitable. We've seen this before, and we've never seen this before, and it's spectacular.
Rebecca Makkai - New York Times Book Review
Gorgeous, utterly absorbing.… More than many of her contemporaries, the British writer Tessa Hadley understands that life is full of moments when the past presses up against the present, and when the present transforms the past. Her brilliant new novel, Late in the Day, explores both with equal urgency.
Boston Globe
[A] splendid, perceptive book.… Hadley has expertly examined the complications and intimacies of marriage and family in such novels as The Past, The Master Bedroom and Clever Girl. In Late in the Day she continues her persistent exploration of human frailty and resilience, moving easily between the present and the past to reveal the hard edges and silent compromises that shape all relationships.
Minneapolis Star Tribune
Tessa Hadley is well-known for her inimitable portrayal of character and her latest effort, Late in the Day, is no disappointment.… A smart exploration of human nature, desire, and friendship.
Vanity Fair
The British novelist does what she does best: excavate the tensions and traumas that linger in the most seemingly normal families and relationships.
Huffington Post
[P]erceptive, finely wrought…. Hadley is a writer of the first order, and this novel gives her the opportunity to explore, with profound incisiveness and depth, the inevitable changes inherent to long-lasting marriages.
Publishers Weekly
In the fine tradition of women's fiction by authors such as Margaret Drabble, Penelope Lively, and Rachel Cusk exploring relationships among the cultured classes, Hadley's place is secure. —Barbara Love, formerly with Kingston Frontenac P.L., Ont.
Library Journal
A four-person character study—here as always, Hadley is a master of interpersonal dynamics—the novel captures the complexity of loss. Their grief is not only for Zachary; it is for the lives they thought they knew. Restrained and tender.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, use our LitLovers Book Club Resources. They can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
(Resources by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online and off, with attribution. Thanks.)
The Current
Tim Johnston, 2019
Algonquin Books
416 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781616206772
Summary
Tim Johnston, whose breakout debut Descent was called “astonishing,” “dazzling,” and “unforgettable” by critics, returns with The Current, a tour de force about the indelible impact of a crime on the lives of innocent people.
In the dead of winter, outside a small Minnesota town, state troopers pull two young women and their car from the icy Black Root River. One is found downriver, drowned, while the other is found at the scene—half frozen but alive.
What happened was no accident, and news of the crime awakens the community’s memories of another young woman who lost her life in the same river ten years earlier, and whose killer may still live among them.
Determined to find answers, the surviving young woman soon realizes that she’s connected to the earlier unsolved case by more than just a river, and the deeper she plunges into her own investigation, the closer she comes to dangerous truths, and to the violence that simmers just below the surface of her hometown.
Grief, suspicion, the innocent and the guilty—all stir to life in this cold northern town where a young woman can come home, but still not be safe.
Brilliantly plotted and unrelentingly propulsive, The Current is a beautifully realized story about the fragility of life, the power of the past, and the need, always, to fight back. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1962-63
• Where—Iowa City, Iowa, USA
• Education—University of Iowa; University of Massachusetts
• Awards—O'Henry Award
• Currently—lives in Iowa City, Iowa
Tim Johnston is best known as the author of the mystery/thrillers, The Current (2019) and Descent (2015). He was born and raised in Iowa City, Iowa, earning degrees from the University of Iowa and the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. He comes by his love of language naturally: his mother attended the famous Iowa Writers' Workshop for poetry and has written columns for the Des Moines (Iowa) Register, Iowa City Press-Citizen, and New York Times.
Johnston has also published a collection of short stories, The Irish Girl (2009), some of whose stories won The O'Henry Prize and other awards, while the collection as a whole won the Katherine Anne Porter Award. He is also the author of the young-adult novel, Never So Green (2005).
Johnston's stories have appeared in New England Review, New Letters, Iowa Review, Missouri Review, Double Take, Best Life Magazine, and Narrative Magazine, among others.
Before returning to Iowa City, where he now lives, Johnston taught writing at the University of Memphis and George Washington University, where he was a writer-in-residence. (Adapted from various online sources. Retrieved 1/28/2019 .)
Book Reviews
Pick up Tim Johnston's suspenseful novel The Current and you risk finding yourself glued to your chair, eyes to the pages, no thought of attending to daily obligations. Johnston's elegant, cinematic style takes us into the characters' lives and history, problems and concerns. The book examines that horrifying moment when everything changes, the before and after when love, friendship, hopes and trust turn into dread, guilt, blame and grief.
Minneapolis Star Tribune
Gripping as it is, Johnston’s masterful novel is worth lingering over—it soars above the constraints of a traditional thriller and pulls you deep into the secrets of a grief-stricken town.
People
Johnston dazzled with his breakout thriller, Descent; his follow-up is a more ambitious page-turner, unpacking how a shocking murder impacts the denizens of a small Minnesota town as they weather suspicion, guilt, and grief.
Entertainment Weekly
Tim Johnston’s gripping second novel is much more than a skillfully constructed, beautifully written whodunit. It’s a subtle and lyrical acclamation of the heart and spirit of small-town America. The Current is not your conventional, frenetically paced page-turner, although it smolders with a brooding, slow-burn tension that nudges the reader forward, catching you up in the lives of the troubled solitaries at the book’s core.
Washington Independent Review of Books
(Starred review) [O]utstanding…. Johnston imbues each character with believable motives. The nuanced plot delves deep into how a community—and surviving relatives—deal with the aftermath of a death.
Publishers Weekly
I would have taken a break long before 2:00 a.m. last night were it not for Johnston’s masterly ability to rummage inside the heads of his various characters.… We need a little hyperbole if we’re going to adequately describe how much we love a Tim Johnston novel. —Bill Ott
Booklist
(Starred review) [H]aunting…. [T]his novel has at its heart a strong belief that love… is the one thing that truly saves us… [The title] functions as a beautiful metaphor for all the secrets and emotions roiling beneath the surface of every human life.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, use our LitLovers Generic Mystery Questions for THE CURRENT … then take off on your own:
GENERIC QUESTIONS
Mystery / Crime / Suspense Thrillers
1. Talk about the characters, both good and bad. Describe their personalities and motivations. Are they fully developed and emotionally complex? Or are they flat, one-dimensional heroes and villains?
2. What do you know...and when do you know it? At what point in the book do you begin to piece together what happened?
3. Good crime writers embed hidden clues in plain sight, slipping them in casually, almost in passing. Did you pick them out, or were you...clueless? Once you've finished the book, go back to locate the clues hidden in plain sight. How skillful was the author in burying them?
4. Good crime writers also tease us with red-herrings—false clues—to purposely lead readers astray? Does your author try to throw you off track? If so, were you tripped up?
5. Talk about the twists & turns—those surprising plot developments that throw everything you think you've figured out into disarray.
- Do they enhance the story, add complexity, and build suspense?
- Are they plausible or implausible?
- Do they feel forced and gratuitous—inserted merely to extend the story?
6. Does the author ratchet up the suspense? Did you find yourself anxious—quickly turning pages to learn what happened? A what point does the suspense start to build? Where does it climax...then perhaps start rising again?
7. A good ending is essential in any mystery or crime thriller: it should ease up on tension, answer questions, and tidy up loose ends.Does the ending accomplish those goals?
- Is the conclusion probable or believable?
- Is it organic, growing out of clues previously laid out by the author (see Question 3)?
- Or does the ending come out of the blue, feeling forced or tacked-on?
- Perhaps it's too predictable.
- Can you envision a different or better ending?
8. Are there certain passages in the book—ideas, descriptions, or dialogue—that you found interesting or revealing...or that somehow struck you? What lines, if any, made you stop and think?
9. Overall, does the book satisfy? Does it live up to the standards of a good crime story or suspense thriller? Why or why not?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online and off, with attribution. Thanks.)
She Lies in Wait
Gytha Lodge, 2019
Random House
368 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781984817358
Summary
Six friends. One killer. Who do you trust? A teen girl is missing after a night of partying; thirty years later, the discovery of her body reopens a cold case in an absorbing novel featuring a small-town cop determined to finally get to the truth.
On a scorching July night in 1983, a group of teenagers goes camping in the forest.
Bright and brilliant, they are destined for great things, and the youngest of the group—Aurora Jackson—is delighted to be allowed to tag along.
The evening starts like any other—they drink, they dance, they fight, they kiss. Some of them slip off into the woods in pairs, others are left jealous and heartbroken. But by morning, Aurora has disappeared. Her friends claim that she was safe the last time they saw her, right before she went to sleep. An exhaustive investigation is launched, but no trace of the teenager is ever found.
Thirty years later, Aurora’s body is unearthed in a hideaway that only the six friends knew about, and Jonah Sheens is put in charge of solving the long-cold case. Back in 1983, as a young cop in their small town, he had known the teenagers—including Aurora—personally, even before taking part in the search.
Now he’s determined to finally get to the truth of what happened that night. Sheens’s investigation brings the members of the camping party back to the forest, where they will be confronted once again with the events that left one of them dead, and all of them profoundly changed forever.
This searing, psychologically captivating novel marks the arrival of a dazzling new talent, and the start of a new series featuring Detective Chief Inspector Jonah Sheens. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1983-84
• Where—Cambridge, England, UK
• Education—B.A., Cambridge University; M.A., University of East Anglia
• Currently—lives in Cambridge, England
(From the author's Amazon page. Retrieved 1/28/2019.)
Book Reviews
This enjoyably chilling suspense tale by Gytha Lodge conveys both the thrills and the dangers of being a teenager on the brink of adult independence.… The obvious questions of how [Aurora Jackson] died and at whose hand are properly dealt with. But the fascination of this story is in the character studies of the surviving children, all grown up now and participants in a dark mystery that they all wish had never seen the light of day.
Marilyn Stasio - New York Times Book Review
The discovery of [a body] 30 years later… catapults Southampton Det. Chief Insp. Jonah Sheens back to one of his first—and most haunting—investigations.… Lodge smoothly intercuts the present-day… with flashbacks… a promising start to a planned series.
Publishers Weekly
Neatly plotted and nicely atmospheric.… This British import is plausible and eminently satisfying. Encore, please.
Booklist
(Starred review) Sheens and his team are compassionate, clever, and likable.… [I]ntrigues and twists, offer… enough red herrings… to please fans of the genre. There are already two more DCI Sheens novels in the works—hooray!
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, use our LitLovers Generic Mystery Questions for SHE LIES IN WAIT … then take off on your own:
GENERIC QUESTIONS
Mystery / Crime / Suspense Thrillers
1. Talk about the characters, both good and bad. Describe their personalities and motivations. Are they fully developed and emotionally complex? Or are they flat, one-dimensional heroes and villains?
2. What do you know...and when do you know it? At what point in the book do you begin to piece together what happened?
3. Good crime writers embed hidden clues in plain sight, slipping them in casually, almost in passing. Did you pick them out, or were you...clueless? Once you've finished the book, go back to locate the clues hidden in plain sight. How skillful was the author in burying them?
4. Good crime writers also tease us with red-herrings—false clues—to purposely lead readers astray? Does your author try to throw you off track? If so, were you tripped up?
5. Talk about the twists & turns—those surprising plot developments that throw everything you think you've figured out into disarray.
- Do they enhance the story, add complexity, and build suspense?
- Are they plausible or implausible?
- Do they feel forced and gratuitous—inserted merely to extend the story?
6. Does the author ratchet up the suspense? Did you find yourself anxious—quickly turning pages to learn what happened? A what point does the suspense start to build? Where does it climax...then perhaps start rising again?
7. A good ending is essential in any mystery or crime thriller: it should ease up on tension, answer questions, and tidy up loose ends.Does the ending accomplish those goals?
- Is the conclusion probable or believable?
- Is it organic, growing out of clues previously laid out by the author (see Question 3)?
- Or does the ending come out of the blue, feeling forced or tacked-on?
- Perhaps it's too predictable.
- Can you envision a different or better ending?
8. Are there certain passages in the book—ideas, descriptions, or dialogue—that you found interesting or revealing...or that somehow struck you? What lines, if any, made you stop and think?
9. Overall, does the book satisfy? Does it live up to the standards of a good crime story or suspense thriller? Why or why not?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online and off, with attribution. Thanks.)
The Paragon Hotel
Lyndsay Faye, 2019
Penguin Publishing
432 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780735210752
Summary
The new and exciting historical thriller by Lyndsay Faye, author of Edgar-nominated Jane Steele and Gods of Gotham, which follows Alice "Nobody" from Prohibition-era Harlem to Portland's Paragon Hotel.
The year is 1921, and "Nobody" Alice James is on a cross-country train, carrying a bullet wound and fleeing for her life following an illicit drug and liquor deal gone horribly wrong.
Desperate to get as far away as possible from New York City and those who want her dead, she has her sights set on Oregon: a distant frontier that seems the end of the line.
She befriends Max, a black Pullman porter who reminds her achingly of Harlem, who leads Alice to the Paragon Hotel upon arrival in Portland. Her unlikely sanctuary turns out to be the only all-black hotel in the city, and its lodgers seem unduly terrified of a white woman on the premises.
But as she meets the churlish Dr. Pendleton, the stately Mavereen, and the unforgettable club chanteuse Blossom Fontaine, she begins to understand the reason for their dread. The Ku Klux Klan has arrived in Portland in fearful numbers—burning crosses, inciting violence, electing officials, and brutalizing blacks.
And only Alice, along with her new "family" of Paragon residents, are willing to search for a missing mulatto child who has mysteriously vanished into the Oregon woods.
Why was "Nobody" Alice James forced to escape Harlem?
Why do the Paragon's denizens live in fear—and what other sins are they hiding?
Where did the orphaned child who went missing from the hotel, Davy Lee, come from in the first place?
And, perhaps most important, why does Blossom Fontaine seem to be at the very center of this tangled web? (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1980
• Raised—Pacific Northwest, USA
• Education—B.A., Notre Dame de Namur University
• Currently—lives in Ridgewood, Queens, New York City
Lyndsay Faye is the American author of several crime novels with an historical-fiction bent. She was born in Northern California, raised in the Pacific Northwest, and graduated from Notre Dame de Namur University in the San Francisco Bay Area with a dual degree in English and Performance.
Her early career kept her in the Bay Area working as a professional actress, "nearly always," she says, "in a corset, and if not a corset then… heels and lined stockings." In 2005 she made the move to Manhattan to audition for acting jobs, working in a restaurant as her day job...until it was bulldozed to the ground by developers.
Novels
Sans restaurant job, and with more time on her hands, an initial foray into writing payed off. In 2009 Faye published her first novel, Dust and Shadow: An Account of the Ripper Killings by Dr. John H. Watson. The book pays tribute to Sherlock Holmes and his sidekick Watson, the duo whose adventures first captivated Faye as a child.
Faye's innate curiosity next spurred her to delve into the history of the New York Police Department, by which she learned that the department's founding coincided with the Irish Potato Famine in 1845. That research inspired her three Timothy Wilde novels—The Gods of Gotham (2012), Seven for a Secret (2013), and The Fatal Flame (2015). The novels follow ex-bartender Timothy Wilde as he learns the perils of police work in a violent and racially divided city during the pre-Civil War era.
Her next novel Jane Steele, released in 2016, re-imagines Jane Eyre as a gutsy, heroic serial killer who battles for justice with methods inspired by Darkly Dreaming Dexter.
Faye has been nominated for an Edgar Award, a Dilys Winn Award, and is honored to have been selected by the American Library Association's RUSA Reader's List for Best Historical. She is an international bestseller and her Timothy Wilde Trilogy has been translated into 14 languages.
Lyndsay and her husband Gabriel live in Ridgewood, Queens, a borough of New York. They have two cats, Grendel and Prufrock. She is a member of Actor’s Equity Association, the Adventuresses of Sherlock Holmes, the Baker Street Babes, the Baker Street Irregulars, Mystery Writers of America, and Girls Write Now. And always, she is hard at work on her next novel. (Adapted from the author's website.)
Book Reviews
[E]xuberant and weighty…. What starts as a bit of a Prohibition-era crime romp becomes increasingly relevant as issues of mental illness, race, and gender identity take on greater significance.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review) Faye has meticulously researched the racial tensions and social culture of 1920s Portland, basing the Paragon Hotel on the real Golden West Hotel. Her prose is lush with details, from rich descriptions of the hotel rooms [to] a diva's Paris gown. —Jennifer Funk, McKendree Univ. Lib., Lebanon, IL
Library Journal
(Starred review) Faye once again vividly illuminates history with her fiction.… [R]emarkably fluid fiction, framed as a love letter and based in fact.
Booklist
This historical novel, which carries strong reverberations of present-day social and cultural upheavals, contains a message from a century ago that's useful to our own time: "We need to do better at solving things." A riveting multilevel thriller of race, sex, and mob violence that throbs with menace as it hums with wit.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. While Americans study the South’s Jim Crow laws as part of U.S. history, fewer people are aware that the Pacific Northwest was envisioned by many of its settlers as a whites-only utopia, a place that would remain free of crime as long as it remained free of people of color. Did this information surprise you? Due to Oregon’s geography, did you expect its founders to hold more open views regarding race?
2. Jazz music is what first brings Alice and Max together, and mixed-race nightclub during the Prohibition era were regarded by many social reformers as being a key positive catalyst in breaking down color lines. What is your favorite musical style? Have you ever connected with someone who had a very different upbringing because you enjoyed the same music? Do you see music (or art or performance) as a way of relating to complete strangers?
3. Immediately following the importation of the Mafia from Italy to New York City, the Five Families unleashed terrible violence against their fellow immigrants and exerted tremendous control over local politics and commerce. Alice remarks wryly at one point that it’s difficult for her to understand whites abusing blacks, since Italians so strongly preferred to abuse one another (as did the Irish and the Yiddish gangs of New York). In your experience, or in your family history, was your culture more in danger of being terrorized from within or from without?
4. Identity and the ability to know oneself are major themes in this novel, especially as the friendship between Blossom and Alice develops. How well does Blossom know herself? How well does Alice? Are they ever wrong about themselves, and how does each woman help the other to see herself in a different light? Do you think everyone keeps profound secrets, or do you find the two women remarkable in this regard?
5. Substance abuse affects many of the characters in The Paragon Hotel. For example, when heroin was first introduced by Bayer, it was marketed as cough syrup, and Prohibition led to many deaths caused by illegally produced alcohol that was tainted with other chemicals. How many addicts can you identify in the book? To what extent could Blossom be considered one? Why or why not? Did the heroin epidemic of that time period remind you of oxycodone or Oxy-Contin abuse in America today?
6. Nicolo Benenati’s last name translates in Italian to "born good." How far do you think a person’s character can be warped by tragic circumstances? Do you think that he really was born good and then corrupted, or do you think that Nicolo must always have been somewhat unstable? Why or why not? Mr. Salvatici also commits atrocities in the novel, though largely off the page. Did you sympathize with him after his own family tragedy was revealed, or did you continue to denounce his choices? Why or why not?
7. The Ku Klux Klan experienced a massive swell in their numbers during the uncertain years following World War I, a time when women’s roles were changing rapidly, immigrants were arriving in unprecedented numbers, and African Americans were migrating into new neighborhoods. The Klan’s terrible influence was strongest not only in the South, where many people of color resided, but also in suburban areas that were already completely dominated by white Protestants. Why do you think that might have been? Blossom argues with Jenny that it doesn’t matter how genteel and sophisticated the black population appears; they will never be fully accepted by whites. To what extent was she right or wrong?
8. While the concept of feminism has existed for as long as females have, Prohibition was the backdrop for massive sea changes in the realm of women’s rights. As a result, for the first time, the playing field was leveled, since alcohol was now illegal for everyone: women drank in private clubs, smoked in public restaurants, cut their hair, married later, worked a wider range of jobs, and were allowed to vote. How do you imagine you would have reacted to all the upheaval? Would you have marched with the suffragettes and teetotalers, caroused with the flappers, or sat at home by the fire with a good book? Would your family have approved of you? Why or why not?
9. There is a wide spectrum of love in this novel—romantic love, sisterly love, twisted love, familial love, and love of community, to name a few. Which relationships affected you the most, and why did they draw you in? Is it more important to you to have a close-knit group to rely on or one special person who understands you better than anyone else? Did you see any of your own relationships reflected in these characters, and if so, which were they?
10. To what extent did the setting affect the characters in The Paragon Hotel? Did the starkly urban, multicultural concrete jungle of New York seem more familiar to you than the lush, rain-soaked woodlands surrounding Portland? To what extent might the Step Right Inn, the Hotel Arcadia, and the Paragon Hotel be thought of as characters in this book? Have you ever stayed in a hotel that left a lasting impression on you, and if so, where was it and what was it like? What happened to make your visit memorable?
11. Most of the people in this novel believe in some form of spirituality or the supernatural. Alice mingles Catholicism with superstitions, Mavereen is a staunch Christian, Blossom has a whimsical attitude toward Fate and "lost pennies," Evelina seems to own slightly mystical qualities, Wednesday Joe puts all his trust in luck, and Jenny Kiona holds deep respect for her own Native American roots. Do you believe in higher powers? If so, what kind, and what form does that belief take?
12. Seeing more of the world changes many people in this book, including Alice, when she takes refuge in Portland. How does leaving New York, where she has spent her entire life, alter her? Dr. Pendleton and Maximilian both served in World War I—what marks did their experiences leave on them? Mavereen and her late husband migrated to Portland from Georgia—how did this affect them? Max and Blossom others enjoyed a wider range of freedom and pleasure in Paris than in America. Evelina went away to college. Is travel important to you? Why or why not?
13. Alice’s powers of disguising herself depend a great deal on her wardrobe. To what extent is clothing important to her? How does it keep her safe? How and when does a character’s garb determine her class or the extent of her power? Can people really change themselves by changing their style? Blossom uses artful makeup and glamorous gowns as both weapons and shields. Do you choose clothing more for expediency, or do you ever manipulate what you’re wearing to give others a different impression of you?
14. While The Paragon Hotel has a definite ending, the fates of many of the characters remain unclear and fraught with danger. What do you imagine happens to Max and Alice afterward? Or to Wednesday Joe, and Jenny? Rooster and Miss Christina? What do you imagine becomes of Blossom and Evelina, and what do you see when you picture Davy Lee as an adult? If it interests you, try sketching out their later lives as a writing exercise.
(Questions issued by the publisher. See the Book Club Kit.)
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The Au Pair
Emma Rous, 2019
Penguin Publishing
384 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780440000457
Summary
Seraphine Mayes and her twin brother, Danny, were born in the middle of summer at their family's estate on the Norfolk coast.
Within hours of their birth, their mother threw herself from the cliffs, the au pair fled, and the village thrilled with whispers of dark cloaks, changelings, and the aloof couple who drew a young nanny into their inner circle.
Now an adult, Seraphine mourns the recent death of her father.
While going through his belongings, she uncovers a family photograph that raises dangerous questions. It was taken on the day the twins were born, and in the photo, their mother, surrounded by her husband and her young son, is smiling serenely and holding just one baby.
Who is the child, and what really happened that day? (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
(From Amazon.)
Book Reviews
This is one hell of a ride.
New York Post
[An] atmospheric if muddled first novel…. Rous ably interweaves accounts from dual narrators, Seraphine and Laura, to fan the suspense, but her plot-driven page-turner eventually founders after a few too many fantastic turns.
Publishers Weekly
A splendid read that will be best enjoyed with a book club or a buddy, as you’ll be itching to digest the tale’s twists with someone else, especially when you reach the jaw-dropping climax.”
BookPage
As delicious and spellbinding as a soap opera, complete with the dramatic moments and outrageous twists. A promising first novel from Rous, The Au Pair is an absolutely absorbing and scandalous page-turner.
Booklist
An unfamiliar photo causes a British woman to question her identity and investigate long-hidden family secrets in this debut thriller. …The ambiance of Summerbourne and the family that inhabits it… adds [a] gothic touch…. A modern gothic suspense novel done right.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. What were your feelings about Summerbourne as the setting for this story? Did you empathize with Seraphine’s attachment to the house, or are you more like Danny as far as bricks and mortar are concerned?
2. Seraphine tells us early on she’s "never felt much need for friendships." Do you think this might have been influenced by her early childhood experiences? Do you think her attitude might have changed at all by the end of the book?
3. Laura says to Alex, "We all did bad things, Alex. You, me, Ruth, Dominic. Just because we haven’t been arrested like Vera doesn’t mean we got away with it." Do you think all four of them carry an equal amount of blame for their actions?
4. Pregnancy denial is a real phenomenon. Did you pick up on clues in the book that Laura was pregnant—clues that she herself simultaneously mentioned and ignored? Have you come across other forms of psychological denial, such as people refusing to acknowledge problems in their relationships, jobs, health, or behavior?
5. The Latin inscription at the folly translates as "A precipice in front, wolves behind." Do you think this is an apt description of the situation Laura finds herself in after the babies are born? Could she have achieved a better outcome?
6. When Vera admits she had initial doubts about the babies’ identities, Seraphine tells us: "I try to embrace [Vera’s] meaning: that it doesn’t matter to her, that she loves us anyway. But it’s not enough. Her love for us doesn’t give her the right to hide the truth from us." Do you agree? Do you have any sympathy with Vera’s desire to bring up the babies as Summerbourne twins irrespective of where they came from?
7. How did Michael’s stories and the village gossip about the Mayes family make you feel? Do you think rumors and gossip are inevitable in any community?
8. Do you believe Vera was guilty of all three of the crimes she was charged with—Ruth’s murder, Dominic’s murder, and Laura’s attempted murder?
9. If you could spend an afternoon on the Summerbourne patio with any one of the characters from The Au Pair, which one would you choose, and why?
10. What do you hope the future might hold for Laura and Seraphine?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)