Blackbird House
Alice Hoffman, 2004
Doubleday
240 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780385507615
Summary
An evocative work that traces the lives of the various occupants of an old Massachusetts house over a span of two hundred years.
In a rare and gorgeous departure, beloved novelist Alice Hoffman weaves a web of tales, all set in Blackbird House. This small farm on the outer reaches of Cape Cod is a place that is as bewitching and alive as the characters we meet:
Violet, a brilliant girl who is in love with books and with a man destined to betray her; Lysander Wynn, attacked by a halibut as big as a horse, certain that his life is ruined until a boarder wearing red boots arrives to change everything; Maya Cooper, who does not understand the true meaning of the love between her mother and father until it is nearly too late.
From the time of the British occupation of Massachusetts to our own modern world, family after family’s lives are inexorably changed, not only by the people they love but by the lives they lead inside Blackbird House.
These interconnected narratives are as intelligent as they are haunting, as luminous as they are unusual. Inside Blackbird House more than a dozen men and women learn how love transforms us and how it is the one lasting element in our lives. The past both dissipates and remains contained inside the rooms of Blackbird House, where there are terrible secrets, inspired beauty, and, above all else, a spirit of coming home.
From the writer Time has said tells "truths powerful enough to break a reader’s heart" comes a glorious travelogue through time and fate, through loss and love and survival. Welcome to Blackbird House. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—March 16, 1952
• Where—New York, New York, USA
• Education—B.A., Adelphi Univ.; M.A., Stanford Univ.
• Currently—lives in Boston, Massachusetts
Born in the 1950s to college-educated parents who divorced when she was young, Alice Hoffman was raised by her single, working mother in a blue-collar Long Island neighborhood. Although she felt like an outsider growing up, she discovered that these feelings of not quite belonging positioned her uniquely to observe people from a distance. Later, she would hone this viewpoint in stories that captured the full intensity of the human experience.
After high school, Hoffman went to work for the Doubleday factory in Garden City. But the eight-hour, supervised workday was not for her, and she quit before lunch on her first day! She enrolled in night school at Adelphi University, graduating in 1971 with a degree in English. She went on to attend Stanford University's Creative Writing Center on a Mirrellees Fellowship. Her mentor at Stanford, the great teacher and novelist Albert Guerard, helped to get her first story published in the literary magazine Fiction. The story attracted the attention of legendary editor Ted Solotaroff, who asked if she had written any longer fiction. She hadn't — but immediately set to work. In 1977, when Hoffman was 25, her first novel, Property Of, was published to great fanfare.
Since that remarkable debut, Hoffman has carved herself a unique niche in American fiction. A favorite with teens as well as adults, she renders life's deepest mysteries immediately understandable in stories suffused with magic realism and a dreamy, fairy-tale sensibility. (In a 1994 article for the New York Times, interviewer Ruth Reichl described the magic in Hoffman's books as a casual, regular occurrence — "...so offhand that even the most skeptical reader can accept it.") Her characters' lives are transformed by uncontrollable forces — love and loss, sorrow and bliss, danger and death.
Hoffman's 1997 novel Here on Earth was selected as an Oprah Book Club pick, but even without Winfrey's powerful endorsement, her books have become huge bestsellers — including three that have been adapted for the movies: Practical Magic (1995), The River King (2000), and her YA fable Aquamarine (2001).
Hoffman is a breast cancer survivor; and like many people who consider themselves blessed with luck, she believes strongly in giving back. For this reason, she donated her advance from her 1999 short story collection Local Girls to help create the Hoffman Breast Center at Mt. Auburn Hospital in Cambridge, MA
Extras
From a 2003 Barnes & Noble interview:
• Hoffman has written a number of children's books, including Fireflies: A Winter's Tale (1999), Horsefly (2000), and Moondog (2004).
• Aquamarine was written for Hoffman's best friend, Jo Ann, who dreamed of the freedom of mermaids as she battled brain cancer.
• Here on Earth is a modern version of Hoffman's favorite novel, Wuthering Heights.
• Hoffman has been honored with the Massachusetts Book Award for her teen novel Incantation.
• When asked what books most influenced her life or career, here's what she said:
Edward Eager's brilliant series of suburban magic: Half Magic, Magic by the Lake, Magic or Not, Knight's Castle, The Time Garden, Seven-Day Magic, The Well Wishers. Anything by Ray Bradbury, Shirley Jackson, J. D. Salinger, Grace Paley. My favorite book: Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights. (Author bio and interview from Barnes & Noble.)
Book Reviews
[W]ith every loss comes the triumph of the human spirit. Hoffman doesn’t wrap it up with a pretty bow. She makes it real. Her characters survive with grit, persistence, the passage of time, and occasionally, some pretty twisted mental and physical hang-ups. But they are survivors and their survival left its mark on me. READ MORE …
Kathy Aspden, AUTHOR - LitLovers
Fire, water, milk, pears, halibut…play important symbolic and sometimes almost magical roles. This may not be the subtlest of literary devices, but Hoffman's lyrical prose weaves an undeniable spell.
Publishers Weekly
[A] change for Hoffman whose fiction often features…a bit of magic.… [H]haunted-and haunting-characters populate the tales, which are also notable for their intense sense of place. Hoffman's many fans should welcome this little gem with enthusiasm. —Starr E. Smith, Fairfax Cty. P.L., VA
Library Journal
[E]ntrancing.… Hoffman…orchestrates intense romances and profound sacrifices. Those who live in Blackbird House, by turns brilliant, crazy, and courageous, follow their dreams, endure nightmares, and find that their numinous home is as much a part of their being as their parents' DNA.
Booklist
With a dozen stories, some more clearly connected than others but all set in the same farmhouse on Cape Cod from the time of the British blockade to the present, Hoffman creates a continuous narrative built up through a sense of place.…. A quiet but deeply moving achievement of lyric power.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. How does "The Edge of the World" set the tone for Blackbird House? How would you characterize the house—is it frightening, soothing, mysterious? Did your feelings about the house change as the book unfolded? If so,how?
2. In the opening story, "The Edge of the World," a fisherman and his son are lost at sea. How do they haunt Blackbird House, both literally and figuratively? In which ways are the other characters, themselves floundering and lost, seeking to be found? What other ghosts—both literal and metaphorical—are present in the book?
3. When Coral finds eggs with holes in "The Edge of the World," she views them as omens "of lives unfinished." What other omens does Coral notice? How are these omens similar and different from the signs that Maya’s mother perceives two hundred years later in "India"? How is the white bird an omen?
4. Why do you think that Vincent stays away from his childhood home for so long in "The Edge of the World"?What do you suppose his mother’s reaction is upon his return? Why do you think he is fearless about the sea?
5. The image of drowning courses throughout the book, from the literal loss of life of John and Isaac (in "The Edge of the World") to Lysander’s accident ("The Witch of Truro"), to the characterization of Emma’s parents as "two drowning people" in "The Summer Kitchen." What about the act of drowning is so potent in describing loss, either of life or of love? In which other ways does the power of nature play a role in the book?
6. Love at first sight occurs with many of the couples in Blackbird House. Name them. How does this thunderbolt of passion change and shape their lives? Which couple do you think is best suited for one another in the book? The worst? Do you believe in love at first sight?
7. Sibling relationships are very important in Blackbird House. How does sibling rivalry inform some of them,such as Violet’s relationship with Huley (in "Black is the Color of My True Love’s Hair")? How do siblings form a support network for one another, such as Emma and Walker ("The Summer Kitchen" and "Wish You Were Here") and Garnet and Ruby ("The Token")? Which sibling pair do you consider to be the most loving and supportive toward one another? Does one pair remind you of you and your siblings?
8. "I realized I would have to be careful about who I became," Garnet says in "The Token." What drives her toward this revelation? How does Garnet’s relationship with her mother change as a result of it? Who else in the book has an epiphany that’s driven by the behavior of a parent?
9. Why does Larkin promise Lucinda he will "change the world" in "Insulting the Angels"? How is this uncharacteristic of him? What change does Larkin himself want? Why do you think that Lucinda leaves the baby with him and goes off to fight?
10. Violet sees books as a passageway to something greater. How does knowledge broaden her horizons? In what ways does it stifle her? Do you think she’s correct when she wonders, in "Lionheart," if sending Lion to Harvard was the "greatest mistake she’s ever made"? Why are Lion, and his son after him, so adored by Violet?
11. "When he kissed her, he felt as though he were swallowing sadness," thinks Lion, Jr., of his love for Dorey (p. 116, in "The Conjurer’s Handbook"). What about Dorey attracts Lion? How does their relationship overcome its mournful circumstances to take flight? What similarities do Dorey and Violet share?
12. How does Maya turn away from her parents in "India"? In what ways does she emulate her brother in her dismissal of what her parents stand for? Do you think they come to a better comprehension of one another after Kalkin’s death? Why or why not?
13. "Loneliness can become nasty and hopeless," Hoffman writes on page 162. Which characters allow loneliness to fill them with bitterness? In contrast, who enjoys time alone and grows as a result of it?
14. In the book, there’s a reluctance to meddle in the business of others—from "The Wedding of Snow and Ice,"where neighbors ignore the physical abuse occurring next door, to "The Pear Tree," a chronicle of a family’s struggle with a troubled child. Why is the community so hesitant to become involved in these situations? What about Blackbird House might encourage the isolation of its inhabitants? How is this similar to or different from your personal experiences in a community?
15. How does Jamie’s experience in "The Wedding of Snow and Ice" shape the course of his life? What about it sparks his decision to become a doctor? How is he similar and different to Walker, another young boy (in "The Summer Kitchen") who decides to enter the medical profession?
16. Emma wishes for "the person she could have been if she hadn’t been stopped in some way" (p. 219) in "Wish You Were Here." Who else in the book has a dividing line between the person they were and who they are now? Do you have a point in your life that’s as significant? What is it?
17. What compels Emma to reach out to the boy at her door at the end of the book? How does the boy share striking similarities to Isaac in "The Edge of the World"? How does Hoffman bring the story full circle in the novel’s last scene?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)
Meddling Kids
Edgar Cantero, 2017
Knopf Doubleday
336 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780385541992
Summary
With raucous humor and brilliantly orchestrated mayhem, Meddling Kids subverts teen detective archetypes like the Hardy Boys, the Famous Five, and Scooby-Doo, and delivers an exuberant and wickedly entertaining celebration of horror, love, friendship, and many-tentacled, interdimensional demon spawn.
1977
The Blyton Summer Detective Club (of Blyton Hills, a small mining town in Oregon’s Zoinx River Valley) solved their final mystery and unmasked the elusive Sleepy Lake monster — another low-life fortune hunter trying to get his dirty hands on the legendary riches hidden in Deboën Mansion. And he would have gotten away with it too, if it weren’t for those meddling kids.
1990
The former detectives have grown up and apart, each haunted by disturbing memories of their final night in the old haunted house. There are too many strange, half-remembered encounters and events that cannot be dismissed or explained away by a guy in a mask.
And Andy, the once intrepid tomboy now wanted in two states, is tired of running from her demons. She needs answers. To find them she will need Kerri, the one-time kid genius and budding biologist, now drinking her ghosts away in New York with Tim, an excitable Weimaraner descended from the original canine member of the club.
They will also have to get Nate, the horror nerd currently residing in an asylum in Arkham, Massachusetts. Luckily Nate has not lost contact with Peter, the handsome jock turned movie star who was once their team leader … which is remarkable, considering Peter has been dead for years.
The time has come to get the team back together, face their fears, and find out what actually happened all those years ago at Sleepy Lake. It’s their only chance to end the nightmares and, perhaps, save the world.
A nostalgic and subversive trip rife with sly nods to H. P. Lovecraft and pop culture, Edgar Cantero’s Meddling Kids is a strikingly original and dazzling reminder of the fun and adventure we can discover at the heart of our favorite stories, no matter how old we get. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—May 27, 1981
• Where—Barcelona, Spain
• Education—N/A
• Awards—Joan Crexells Prize-Best Novel
• Currently—lives in Barcelona, Spain
Edgar Cantanero is a Spanish caetoonist and writer born in Barcelona where he still lives and writes in Spanish, Catalonia (an ancient Romance languge), and English. His first book, Dormir amb Winona Ryder (2007, Sleeping with Winona Ryder), was awarded the Joan Crexells prize for best novel of 2007. It was followed by Vallvi (2011), a punk dystopian thriller
His first U.S. novel (and third book), Supernatural Enhancements, came out in 2014 as a paranormal mystery. It's first-person narrative incorporates journals, postcard images, sketches, and audio-video transcripts. For the most part, the novel received favorable reviews with Kirkus calling it "quirky" and "good fun throughout."
As Cantero recounts on his blog, his second English novel, was the result of a January, 2015, luncheon in New York. He was in the midst of pitching a new book idea to his publisher when he made a rash promise to deliver a finished manuscript in eight months. The only thing, Cantero was bluffing.
Yet to his own amazement, at the end of eight months, he acutally completed the project. That book became Meddling Kids, released in 2017. The story—surrounding members of a former kid's detective club who are now young adults—contains elements of H.P. Lovecraft, as well as Scooby Doo and the Hardy Boys. (From varoius online sources.)
Book Reviews
Cantero will win readers’ hearts with this goofy, smart love letter to childhood adventure and enduring friendship.… [With] a powerful sorcerer who plans to summon a world-ending leviathan. The prose is fast and funny, and the quirky, lovable characters are absolutely irresistible.
Publishers Weekly
Darker than the meddling kids of Scooby Doo fame; from the author of The Supernatural Enhancements.
Library Journal
(Starred review.) Cantero’s imagination is vivid, and the story, once it gains speed, continues at a breakneck, roller-coaster pace. He plays with form and style, which makes for an enjoyable romp. Fans of modern takes on Lovecraft and those that are nostalgic for the cartoons of their childhood will like this novel.
Booklist
Cantero is a lively, capable writer, but this isn't much of a stretch for him; he seems determined to occupy the middlebrow midrange… Meddling? Middling. A pleasing enough confection, but no great advance for either pop culture or the author's development.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. The opening of the book sees the members of the Blyton Summer Detective Club (BSDC) as adults, and reveals their childhood stories in non-linear episodes. Did you find that this technique created suspense and mystery? How else does Cantero build tension throughout the book?
2. What did you make of BSDC’s choice to go back to Blyton Hills and return to the Deboen Mansion? Would you have made the same decision?
3. For years, Nate has been plagued by hallucinations of the deceased Peter. However, Peter has a real impact on Nate’s choices and actions. How reliable do you consider Nate’s interactions with Peter to be? Are they a figment of imagination or is Peter still an active member of the group?
4. The narrator in Meddling Kids has a very distinct voice and personality. Did you find yourself connecting with the voice? What did the narrative voice add to your reading experience?
5. Meddling Kids draws on archetypes from The Hardy Boys, The Famous Five, and Scooby-Doo—how did your knowledge of characters from those works inform your reading of the novel?
6. The supernatural plot in the book borrows heavily from cosmic horror, H.P. Lovecraft, and the Cthulhu Mythos. How much of those inspirations can you recognize in the scenarios, the props, even the supporting characters in Meddling Kids?
7. Which member of the BSDC do you identify most with? Why?
8. The character of Dunia Deboen, even after the final revelations, is shrouded in mystery: by the end, we know tidbits from her past, but nothing about her true origins–and her future is left open as well. Do you like this ambiguity? Do you think it’s intentional?
9. Were you surprised by the ending of Meddling Kids? If so, what did you expect to happen?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)
Where the Light Falls: A Novel of the French Revolution
Allison and Owen Pataki, 2017
Random House
384 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780399591686
Summary
Three years after the storming of the Bastille, the streets of Paris are roiling with revolution. The citizens of France are enlivened by the ideals of liberty, equality, and fraternity.
The monarchy of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette has been dismantled—with the help of the guillotine—and a new nation is rising in its place.
Jean-Luc, an idealistic young lawyer, moves his wife and their infant son from a comfortable life in Marseille to Paris, in the hopes of joining the cause.
Andre, the son of a denounced nobleman, has evaded execution by joining the new French army. Sophie, a young aristocratic widow, embarks on her own fight for independence against her powerful, vindictive uncle.
As chaos threatens to undo the progress of the Revolution and the demand for justice breeds instability and paranoia, the lives of these compatriots become inextricably linked. Jean-Luc, Ande, and Sophie find themselves in a world where survival seems increasingly less likely—for themselves and, indeed, for the nation.
Featuring cameos from legendary figures such as Robespierre, Louis XVI, and Thomas-Alexandre Dumas, Where the Light Falls is an epic and engrossing novel, moving from the streets and courtrooms of Paris to Napoleon’s epic march across the burning sands of Egypt.
With vivid detail and imagery, the Patakis capture the hearts and minds of the citizens of France fighting for truth above all, and for their belief in a cause greater than themselves. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1984
• Raised—Garrison, New York, USA
• Education—B.A., Yale University
• Currently—lives in Chicago, Illinois
Allison Pataki is an American author and journalist and the daughter of former governor of New York, George Pataki (served 1995-2006). She was raised in Garrison, New York, across the Hudson River from West Point Military Academy, and later majored in English at Yale University. She met her husband David Levy during her sophomore, and the two married in June 2012.
Pataki has written several historical novels: The Traitor's Wife: The Woman Behind Benedict Arnold and the Plan to Betray America (2014), The Accidental Empress (2015), Sisi: Empress on Her Own (2016), and Where the Light Falls: A Novel of the French Revolution (2017), which she co-authored with her brother Owen.
In addition to historical fiction, Allison has written for ABCNews.com, The Huffington Post, FoxNews.com, Travel Girl, and other media outlets. In 2016 she wrote an article for the New York Times detailing her family's experience with traumatic brain injury and the road to recovery.
In 2015, Pataki co-founded reConnect Hungary, an educational and social immersion program for young adults of Hungarian heritage, who are born in the U.S. or Canada, to gain a better understanding of their Hungarian heritage. (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 7/15/2017.)
Book Reviews
A vivid painting of Paris during the Reign of Terror.... Devotees of Dumas and Hugo willdevour this tale of heroism and treachery…but purists may balk at the occasional anachronistic language and dialog...and other fictionalization of real people despite explanations by the authors.
Library Journal
Meticulously researched…the book succeeds in forcefully illustrating the lessons of the French Revolution for today’s democratic movements. However, sheer talkiness too often overpowers the narrative, and the swashbuckling close is too little, too late. [W]orthy but stultifying.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. This novel begins with a scene at the guillotine, one of the bloodiest and most iconic symbols of the French Revolution, specifically its Reign of Terror. Why do you think the authors begin the story in this way? What role does the guillotine play throughout this novel? How does this opening scene compare to the epilogue, which plays out before Notre Dame Cathedral at the coronation of Emperor Napoleon?
2. The characters in Where the Light Falls frequently mention the ideals of the Enlightenment and its impact on the French Revolution. Do you believe the Revolution was born out of the Enlightenment? Why or why not?
3. This book has many examples of mentors or father figures guiding younger people, some more positive than others. Discuss some of these mentors. Whom did you find to be the most inspiring? Whom did you find to be the most malicious?
4. Compare the French Revolution with the American Revolution of just a few years earlier. Why do you believe they were so different? Were they similar in any way? How would the characters of Where the Light Falls compare the two?
5. Compare and contrast the two discussions Andre Valiere has on the eve of the battle of Valmy. One is with General Murat, the other with General Kellermann. What message was each older man was trying to send, and which had a stronger effect on Andre? Why?
6. In this story, Jean-Luc St. Clair struggles to balance his obligations to his family as a father and a husband with his duties as a lawyer, citizen, and republican fighting for his beliefs. Does he strike an appropriate balance between the two, or does he fall short in his obligations to one or the other? Why?
7. Sophie de Vincennes tells Andre of her forced marriage at a very young age to a count. Discuss the obstacles and opportunities women of this time period faced. Find three women from this period and list some of the obstacles they faced and how they overcame them (or did not).
8. Guillaume Lazare is a fictional character based on several real-life French revolutionaries. Who do you think were the real individuals that his character is based on, and what similarities or differences do you find between the character and the real historical figures?
9. Compare Napoleon’s expedition to Egypt with more recent interventions in the Middle East and North Africa. Are there any similarities between the conquest explored in this book and contemporary conflicts? How are they different?
10. Were you surprised by the revelation of the true identity of the writer known as Citizen Persephone? Why or why not? Why do you think the writer kept his or her identity a secret?
11. The Widow Poitier plays a small but significant recurring role throughout this novel. Discuss this powerless peasant woman and the significance of her appearances in Jean-Luc’s life.
12. Consider the character of General Thomas-Alexandre Dumas, based on the historical figure of the same name, the father of the celebrated French writer Alexandre Dumas. What did you learn from his life story? Were you surprised by the role he played in Andre’s fate?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)
Watch Me Disappear
Janelle Brown, 2017
Random House
368 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780812989465
Summary
Who you want people to be makes you blind to who they really are.
It’s been a year since Billie Flanagan—a Berkeley mom with an enviable life—went on a solo hike in Desolation Wilderness and vanished from the trail. Her body was never found, just a shattered cellphone and a solitary hiking boot.
Her husband and teenage daughter have been coping with Billie’s death the best they can: Jonathan drinks as he works on a loving memoir about his marriage; Olive grows remote, from both her father and her friends at the all-girls school she attends.
But then Olive starts having strange visions of her mother, still alive. Jonathan worries about Olive’s emotional stability, until he starts unearthing secrets from Billie’s past that bring into question everything he thought he understood about his wife.
Who was the woman he knew as Billie Flanagan?
Together, Olive and Jonathan embark on a quest for the truth — about Billie, but also about themselves, learning, in the process, about all the ways that love can distort what we choose to see.
Janelle Brown’s insights into the dynamics of intimate relationships will make you question the stories you tell yourself about the people you love, while her nervy storytelling will keep you guessing until the very last page. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—September 12, 1973
• Raised—San Francisco, California
• Education—B.A., University of California-Berkley
• Currently—lives in Los Angeles, California
Janelle Brown is an American author and journalist-essayist. She was raised in San Francisco, California, and graduated from University of California-Berkeley in the 1990s. Eventually, she decamped to Los Angeles where she lives with her husband and two children.
Brown began her career as a staff writer for Wired, and then spent five years as senior staff writer for Salon. Early on she helped found and edit Maxi, an irreverent, and now defunct, women’s pop culture magazine. She has also written frequently for the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Elle, Vogue, along with a number of other publications.
Brown, however, is most widely known for her novels — Pretty Things (2020), Watch Me Disappear (2017), This Is Where We Live (2010), and All We Ever Wanted Was Everything (2008). (Adapted from the publisher .)
Book Reviews
Brown’s novel is more than just a page-turning suspense story. It’s a gripping family drama that focuses on the choices we make and the ties that bind us to the ones we love.
Publishers Weekly
With romantic subplots and surprise elements, including an unexpected finale, this evenly paced novel is multilayered enough to have wide appeal.… [A]long the lines of The Silent Wife or The Couple Next Door, this has less overt violence and a more emotional story at its heart. —Melanie Kindrachuk, Stratford P.L., Ont.
Library Journal
Like a darker, meatier Where'd You Go Bernadette, Brown's latest explores the messy inner life of a mother just starting to feel invisible to her own family. This brilliantly layered novel is full of twists and turns, tender and biting and vibrant.… [A] tautly paced domestic drama.
Booklist
It's because the author deftly incorporates [various] themes…, however, that the book is so page-turning. Readers are likely to be unsure of which outcome would be most satisfying until the very end. Moody but restrained, this is a familiar tale that sets out to upend itself — and succeeds.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
(We'll add specific questions if and when they're made available by the publisher. In the meantime, use our Generic Mystery Questions.)
GENERIC DISCUSSION 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?
(Generic Mystery Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
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It's Always the Husband
Michele Campbell, 2017
St. Martin's Press
336 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781250081803
Summary
Kate, Aubrey, and Jenny first met as college roommates and soon became inseparable, despite being as different as three women can be.
Kate was beautiful, wild, wealthy, and damaged. Aubrey, on financial aid, came from a broken home, and wanted more than anything to distance herself from her past. And Jenny was a striver—brilliant, ambitious, and determined to succeed.
As an unlikely friendship formed, the three of them swore they would always be there for each other.
But twenty years later, one of them is standing at the edge of a bridge, and someone is urging her to jump.
How did it come to this?
Kate married the gorgeous party boy, Aubrey married up, and Jenny married the boy next door. But how can these three women love and hate each other? Can feelings this strong lead to murder? When one of them dies under mysterious circumstances, will everyone assume, as is often the case, that it’s always the husband?
A suspenseful, absorbing novel that examines the complexities of friendship, It’s Always the Husband will keep readers guessing right up to its shocking conclusion. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Aka—Michele Martinez
• Birth—ca. 1962-63
• Raised—state of Connecticut, USA
• Education—B.A., Harvard University; J.D, Stanford University
• Currently—lives in the state of New Hampshire
Michele Campbell, an American author of police procedurals and, most recently, a crime thriller, was raised in Connecticut. Her father owned an aerospace manufacturing company and her mother was an office manager.
Campbell received her Bachelor's from Harvard and law degree from Stanford. She worked for three years at a New York City law firm before leaving the practice to join the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York. She spent eight years as a federal prosecutor, serving as deputy chief of the Narcotics Unit.
In the 2000's she wrote a series of police procedurals under the name Michele Martinez. The novels, which feature fictional prosecutor Melanie Vargas, include Notorious (2008); Cover Up (2007); Finishing School (2006); and Most Wanted (2005).
Around the same time, Campbell said her goodbyes to the big city law and moved with her husband and two children to New England where, in addition to writing, she teaches law at Vermont Law School.
Like the female characters in her 2017 thriller, It's Always the Husband, Campbell says she has had many close female friends, a few frenemies, and only one husband, who — to the best of her knowledge — has never tried to kill her. (From various online sources.)
Book Reviews
It's Always the Husband has great character development, allowing readers to really get inside the minds of the characters until the very end, where a shocking twist leaves readers stunned (A "top pick").
Romantic Times
Readers will be left in an adrenaline inducing "whodunit" game, until the completely unpredictable conclusion. This book is perfect for fans of Liane Moriarty’s Big Little Lies.
Redbook Magazine
[A] suspenseful if soapy debut from former federal prosecutor Campbell.… Demonstrating diabolical plotting chops and an ability to convincingly conjure settings, Campbell crafts a twisty page-turner that might have been even more powerful if so many of the principals didn’t prove rotten at the core.
Publishers Weekly
Twists, turns, and a puzzling mix of suspects …will keep readers turning the pages.
Booklist
[A] page-turner…. At times, the characters' self-involvement detracts from the suspense of the novel…. However, perhaps this is part of Campbell's larger point: complicity through silence contributes as much to each of the crimes as the acts of violence. Moody and dark in its portrayal of friendship and marriage.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. What is it about the college setting that allows three girls as different as Kate, Jenny and Aubrey to bond? What attracts them to one another? What repels them? If nothing terrible had happened at the end of freshman year, do you think their friendship would have had a future, or would they have gone their separate ways?
2. Kate, Jenny and Aubrey come from very different backgrounds. How is each character shaped by her upbringing and family circumstances? Can the characters’ flaws be explained by their difficult childhoods or their complicated relationships with their parents – or is this just an excuse for bad behavior?
3. Kate is at the center of two love triangles that shape the book. She gets involved with Lucas despite knowing he was Jenny’s high school boyfriend, and she has an affair with Ethan, who is Aubrey’s husband. What forces compel Kate to behave so badly? Is she simply pursuing these men in order to take them away from her best friends, or do you believe her feelings for them? How does the sense of betrayal Jenny and Aubrey feel when Kate steals their men influence their actions toward her?
4. The story cuts back and forth in time between freshman year at Carlisle and the roommates’ reunion twenty years later. Over those two decades, how do the three main characters change? Do they grow up at all? Does marriage, motherhood or career make them wiser, or kinder? At the end of the book, which of the three do you believe is the happiest, or best adjusted?
5. When Kate meets Owen Rizzo in the bar during the thunderstorm, she tells him her name is Maggie Price. Why? What role does Maggie Price’s suicide play in Kate’s inner life over the years? Do you believe she feels guilt for it? Does she feel genuine guilt for what happened to Lucas at the bridge? Is Kate capable of true remorse?
6. Why does Griff love Kate so much? What did you think of his actions toward her throughout the course of their marriage, and at the very end? Throughout the second half of the book, did you believe he killed her? Does he seem remorseful, or not? What do you think his future holds?
7. The three roommates wind up in three very different marriages to three very different men. Were the problems in these marriages a reflection of the women’s innate character flaws? Were they inevitable? If you had to pick one of the three men to be married to — Griff, Ethan or Tim — which would you pick?
8. Which of the three roommates did you like best? Which would you most like to have as a friend? Which is most like you — are you a Kate, an Aubrey or a Jenny, or some combination of the three?
(Questions from the author's website.)