Our Kind of Cruelty
Araminta Hall, 2018
Farrar, Straus & Giroux
288 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780374228194
Summary
A spellbinding, darkly twisted novel about desire and obsession, and the complicated lines between truth and perception, Our Kind of Cruelty introduces Araminta Hall, a chilling new voice in psychological suspense.
This is a love story. Mike’s love story.
Mike Hayes fought his way out of a brutal childhood and into a quiet, if lonely, life before he met Verity Metcalf. V taught him about love, and in return, Mike has dedicated his life to making her happy.
He’s found the perfect home, the perfect job; he’s sculpted himself into the physical ideal V has always wanted. He knows they’ll be blissfully happy together.
It doesn’t matter that she hasn’t been returning his e-mails or phone calls.
It doesn’t matter that she says she’s marrying Angus.
It’s all just part of the secret game they used to play. If Mike watches V closely, he’ll see the signs. If he keeps track of her every move, he’ll know just when to come to her rescue. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
Araminta Hall has worked as a writer, journalist and teacher. Her first novel, Everything & Nothing, was published in 2011 and became a Richard & Judy read that year. Her second, Dot, came out in 2013. Both were published in the U.K. only. Our Kind of Cruelty, releaed in 2018, is her first novel published in the U.S.
Hall teaches creative writing at New Writing South in Brighton, where she lives with her husband and three children. Her latest book, Our Kind of Cruelty, is a deeply unsettling thriller of a love story, in which a secret game between lovers has deadly consequences. (Adapted from the UK pubisher.)
Book Reviews
[A] searing, chilling sliver of perfection about a toxic relationship that may or may not be finished…To a degree that's astonishing, this genre is still picking itself up from Gillian Flynn's brilliant and monumentally crucial Gone Girl, which retaught readers to doubt everything. That doubt lingers all the way through the stunning final pages of Our Kind of Cruelty, which may well turn out to be the year's best thriller.
Charles Finch - New York Times Book Review
A seriously twisted story of obsessive attachment.… If you like sustained discomfort you'll love this one.
Sarah Murdoch - Toronto Star
[A] fiendishly clever psychological thriller.… Hall forces her readers to consider their attitudes to the sexes.
Alison Flood - Guardian (UK)
In Hall’s impressive novel, sexual role-playing games have dangerous undercurrents.… While the orchestration of suspense is masterly, Hall’s real agenda becomes apparent in a feminist subtext: the way in which female desire is judged more harshly in modern society.
Barry Forshaw - Financial Times (UK)
A story of obsession and self delusion, as well as the pain that intense passion can bring, it is disturbing and thrilling.
Daily Mail (UK)
Thrilling.… The reader will wrangle over what's real and what's imagined. As a courtroom drama unfurls, readers may be left wondering if their interpretation of events is due to their own biases.
Irish News (UK)
One of the most unsettling books I have read in a while but brilliant.… Obsessive love has never been written so frighteningly.
Women's Day
[A] disturbing psychological thriller.…Readers never learn enough about V and arguably a lot more than they might wish about a narrator whose head is an uncomfortably creepy place to be. Still, Hall is a writer to watch.
Publishers Weekly
[A] slow-burn, sinister psychological thriller.… Hall’s depiction of stalker mentality and behavior is chilling. Perhaps most interesting is the examination of gender politics and how women are punished for sexual behavior in ways that men are not.
Library Journal
Hall brings the unreliable narrator to new heights in this disturbing narrative.… For fans of Nabokov’s Lolita [and] Highsmith’s Ripley tales.
Booklist
Here's a change—a psychological thriller in which a man is the crazy one.… Which is worse—an emotionally disturbed murderer or a woman with a fierce libido? Hall's U.S. debut is designed to show just how much trouble society has answering that question.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. As the book begins, Mike Hayes, the narrator and main character, is in prison. His barrister has told him to write down the story of events leading to the murder for which he will soon go to trial. Why does the barrister say that Mike’s story feels like "something he can’t grab hold of"? What are clues in Part I that Mike’s version of events may not be accurate? Are there things he tells us about himself that reveal more than he intends?
2. When Mike and Verity met, as students at university, they were both promising young people from very different backgrounds. What initially drew them together? What challenges did they each face and how were they suited to help each other? As their relationship progressed over nine years, how did they each change?
3. What is the Crave, the game Mike and Verity play? How did it begin and how was it named? What does Mike read into Verity’s e-mails and meetings with him that make him believe her marriage to Angus is "the ultimate Crave"?
4. Why does Verity invite Mike to the wedding? Why does she get back in touch with him at all?
5. What is Kaitlyn’s motivation for befriending Mike? How does he interpret her kindness? What does she mean when she says they are both outsiders at work? How does she come to suspect that he is not what he seems?
6. "Eagles are magnificent," Verity tells Mike, explaining to him why she wears a necklace with a silver eagle on it. What does the eagle mean to her? What does it mean to Mike?
7. Mike’s childhood was a combination of cruelty and kindness—a boyhood of damaging cruelty, followed by foster care with Elaine and Barry, who loved him and tried to repair the damage done to him by his mother and her boyfriends. What are instances of kindness and cruelty toward Mike or between other characters? How does Mike respond to kindness? What is his idea of love?
8. What is in the box that Elaine gives Mike when he goes away to university? Which objects are meaningful to him? Even though he says he meant to throw it away at the first opportunity, why has he kept it? How is Mike a combination of the cruelties and kindnesses that the objects in the box represent?
9. What is the sequence of events leading to Angus’s death? Are there signs that Mike is an angry man who might be capable of killing? Who else might bear some of the responsibility for Mike’s actions?
10. The testimony given at the trial often challenges Mike’s version of events. For example, he tells us that Verity’s friend Louise made a pass at him at Verity’s wedding. But Louise testifies that she had never liked Mike, that he was agitated at the wedding and had pushed her. Which version of the story is more believable? What are other examples of testimony that contradict Mike?
11. "I am well practiced in ruining things," Mike thinks as he remembers the events leading to Angus’s death. What leads him to make this observation? Is he a confused and grieving man who has been betrayed by circumstance or a man who deliberately chooses to do wrong—the dangerous fantasist invoked by Petra Gardner or the confused "good lad" his foster mother believes him to be? Does he deserve any sympathy?
12. Besides Verity, are there other people who matter to Mike? How would they describe him? How do his impulses, either cruel or kind—toward his foster parents, co-workers, neighbors, and acquaintances—intensify during the months after Verity leaves him?
13. The media covers the trial as a scandal and relishes in reporting every detail of Verity’s background and relationships. Why are the press and public opinion more focused on her than on Mike? Why do they seem eager to assume she is guilty? Is she treated fairly in court?
14. As the book ends, Mike receives the YOU ARE NOT postcard from Verity. Why did Verity send the postcard? How does Mike interpret her message? Why does he believe he has "saved" her?
15. The epigraph that opens the book (from The Sea, the Sea by Iris Murdoch) implies that Our Kind of Cruelty is essentially a love story. Is it? What else does the epigraph foreshadow?
(Questions issued by the publishers.)
A Good Neighborhood
Therese Anne Fowler, 2020
St. Martin's Press
320 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781250237279
Summary
In Oak Knoll, a verdant, tight-knit North Carolina neighborhood, professor of forestry and ecology Valerie Alston-Holt is raising her bright and talented biracial son, Xavier, who’s headed to college in the fall.
All is well until the Whitmans—a family with new money and a secretly troubled teenage daughter—raze the house and trees next door to build themselves a showplace.
With little in common except a property line, these two families quickly find themselves at odds: first, over an historic oak tree in Valerie's yard, and soon after, the blossoming romance between their two teenagers.
A Good Neighborhood asks big questions about life in America today—what does it mean to be a good neighbor? How do we live alongside each other when we don't see eye to eye?—as it explores the effects of class, race, and heartrending love in a story that’s as provocative as it is powerful. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—April 22, 1967
• Raised—Milan, Illinois, USA
• Education—B.A., M.F.A., North Carolina State University
• Currently—lives in Wake Forest, North Carolina
Therese Anne Fowler (pronounced ta-reece) is the author of severl books, including: A Good Neighborhood (2020), A Well Behaved Woman: A Novel of the Vanderbilts 2018),and Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald (2013).
Fowler is the third child and only daughter of a couple who raised their children in Milan, Illinois. An avowed tomboy, Therese thwarted her grandmother’s determined attempts to dress her in frills—and, to further her point, insisted on playing baseball despite her town having a perfectly good girls’ softball league.
A
Thanks to the implementation of Title IX legislation and her father’s willingness to fight on her behalf, Therese became one of the first girls in the U.S. to play Little League baseball.
Her passion for baseball was exceeded only by her love of books. A reader since age four, she often abused her library privileges by keeping favorite books out just a little too long. When domestic troubles led to unpleasant upheaval during her adolescence, the Rock Island Public Library became her refuge. With no grounding in Literature per se, she made no distinction between the classics and modern fiction. Little Women was as valued as The Dead Zone. A story’s ability to transport her, affect her, was the only relevant matter.
Therese married at eighteen, becoming soon afterward a military spouse (officially referred to at the time as a "dependent spouse"). With customary spirit, she followed her then-husband to Texas, then to Clark Air Base in the Philippines—where, because of politics, very few military spouses could find employment. Again, books came to her rescue as the base library became her home-away-from-home and writers such as Jean Auel, Sidney Sheldon, and Margaret Atwood brought respite from boredom and heat.
Her own foray into writing came years later, after a divorce, single parenthood, enrollment in college, and remarriage. A chance opportunity during the final semester of her undergrad program led to her writing her first short story, and she was hooked.
Having won an essay contest in third grade and seen her writing praised by teachers ever since, she knew she could put words on paper reasonably well. This story, however, was her first real attempt at fiction. Her professor told her she had a knack for it, thus giving her the permission to try she hadn’t known she was waiting for.
After an intensive five-year stint that included one iffy-but-completed novel followed by graduate school, some short-fiction awards, an MFA in creative writing, teaching undergraduates creative writing, and a second completed novel that led to literary representation, Therese was on the path to a writing career. It would take more writing (some of which is published) and a great deal more reading, though, before she began to grasp Literature properly–experience proving to be the best teacher.
Therese has two grown sons and two nearly grown stepsons. She currently lives in North Carolina with her husband. (Adapted from the author's website. Retrieved 2/28/2020.)
Book Reviews
[A]nimosity…between two families…leads to a tragedy in the suburban North Carolina neighborhood of Oak Knoll.… This page-turner delivers a thoughtful exploration of prejudice, preconceived notions, and what it means to be innocent in the age of an opportunistic media.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review) [A] searing story of a neighborhood in present-day America, shining a spotlight on…class and race as two families collide in a small, gentrifying community.… Fowler skillfully renders her characters and their experiences into an unforgettable, heartbreaking story. —Melissa DeWild, Comstock Park, MI
Library Journal
(Starred review) A riveting, potentially redemptive story of modern American suburbia…. Fowler… conjures nuanced characters we won't soon forget…. Traversing topics of love, race, and class, this emotionally complex novel speaks to…our troubled times
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 Sinner
Petra Hammesfahr, 1999 (2017 movie tie-in)
Penguin Publishing
400 pp
ISBN-13: 9780143132851
Summary
The basis for the "instantly gripping" (Washington Post) limited series on USA starring Jessica Biel, The Sinner is an internationally bestselling psychological thriller surrounding an unexplained murder
On a sunny summer afternoon by the lake, Cora Bender stabs a complete stranger to death. Why? What would cause this quiet, kind young mother to commit such a startling act of violence in front of her family and friends?
Cora quickly confesses, and it seems like an open-and-shut case.
But the police commissioner, haunted by these unaswered questions, refuses to close the file and begins his own maverick investigation. So begins the slow unraveling of Cora’s past, a harrowing descent into the depths of her own psyche and the violent secrets buried within.
A dark, spellbinding novel where the truth is to be questioned at every turn, The Sinner is now a smash summer hit, with the TV series hailed as one of the best new shows of summer. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—May 10, 1951
• Where—Titz, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany
• Education—N/A
• Awards—Crime Prize of Wiesbaden; Rhineland Literary Prize
• Currently—lives near Cologne, Germany
Hailed as Germany’s Patricia Highsmith, Petra Hammesfahr has written more than 20 crime and suspense novels, and also writes scripts for film and television. She has won numerous literary prizes, including the Crime Prize of Wiesbaden and the Rhineland Literary Prize.
Hammesfahr's early life was not an easy one. She left school at 13, was married and pregnant by 17. Her husband was an alcoholic. But those experiences she later drew upon for her fiction, a frequent theme of which is the junction of childhood innocence and adult calamity.
Hammesfahr's breakthrough novel, The Sinner, was first published in Germany in 1999, where it remained on the bestseller list for more than 15 months. It was published in England in 2007 and in the U.S. in 2010, becoming both a critical and commercial success. In 2017, the novel was adapted for a TV miniseries, starring Jessica Biel and Bill Pullman. (Adapted from the publisher and Bitter Lemon Press.)
Book Reviews
Hauntingly insightful and sensitive.
Guardian
Delightfully unsettling.
Telegraph
The best psychological suspense novel I have read all year.… [A] brilliant study of a woman driven to the edge of madness.
Sunday Telegraph
This novel by one of Germany's most successful crime writers is wonderfully written, gripping, full of psychological insight.
Literary Review
Petra Hammesfahr's The Sinner demonstrates why she is one of Germany's bestselling writers of crime and psychological thrillers. It's grim, delves deep into the human psyche, and keeps you gripped.
Times (UK)
[A] complex, disturbing, and fast-paced psychological thriller.
Booklist
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.)
top of page (summary)
Social Creature
Sara Isabella Burton, 2018
Knopf Doubleday
288 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780385543521
Summary
A dark, propulsive and addictive debut thriller, splashed with all the glitz and glitter of New York City.
They go through both bottles of champagne right there on the High Line, with nothing but the stars over them. They drink and Lavinia tells Louise about all the places they will go together, when they finish their stories, when they are both great writers-to Paris and to Rome and to Trieste...
Lavinia will never go. She is going to die soon.
Louise has nothing. Lavinia has everything. After a chance encounter, the two spiral into an intimate, intense, and possibly toxic friendship. A Talented Mr. Ripley for the digital age, this seductive story takes a classic tale of obsession and makes it irresistibly new. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1990-1991
• Where—New York, New York, USA
• Education—Ph.D., Oxford University
• Awards—Shiva Naipaul Memorial Prize (Travel)
• Currently—lives in New York City, USA, and in Tiblisi, Georgia
Tara Isabella Burton is a writer of fiction and non-fiction. Winner of the Shiva Naipaul Memorial Prize for Travel Writing, she completed her doctorate in 19th century French literature and theology at the University of Oxford and is a prodigious travel writer, short story writer and essayist for National Geographic, The Wall Street Journal, The Economist’s 1843 and more.
She currently works for Vox as their Religion Correspondent, lives in New York, and divides her time between the Upper East Side and Tbilisi, Georgia (the country). (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
Diabolical.… A wicked original with echoes of the greats (Patricia Highsmith, Gillian Flynn).
Janet Maslin - New York Times
[A] formidable burlesque…sharp as a shard of broken mirror.… Social Creature is at its strongest… when it's focusing on Louise's calculations as she's backdating Facebook posts to cover her tracks and stealing the affections of Lavinia's ex-boyfriend. Its superb dialogue and cutting sense of humor help it glide irresistibly past its peculiar conflicted unrealities.
Charles Finch - New York Times Book Review
(Starred review) [A] mousy girl–wild girl dynamic on display in Burton’s fiendishly clever debut.… This devious, satisfying novel perfectly captures a very narrow slice of the Manhattan demimonde.
Publishers Weekly
New York City, where aspiring writers come to make it big… and obsession looms, is the setting for this debut psychological thriller.… When the shocking plot twist arrives, readers will be glued to this contemporary take on Patricia Highsmith's The Talented Mr. Ripley. —David Miller, Farmville P.L., NC
Library Journal
This fast-paced, stylish…debut…will definitvely ensnare readers. Diabolically playing on what we think we know about others and what we reveal about ourselves in the social-media age, it will give readers the creeps, too.
Booklist
(Starred review) Dark, stylish.… [E]very individual is both victim and villain… creating conflict that propels the book toward its shocking yet inevitale conclusion.… [A] thrilling and provocative crime novel, a devastating exploration of female insecurity, and …society's obsession with social media.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available. In the meantime, use our generic mystery questions to help start a discussion for SOCIAL CONTRACT… then take off on your own:
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.)
Big Lies in a Small Town
Diane Chamberlain, 2020
St. Martin's Press
400 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781250087331
Summary
—North Carolina, 2018:
Morgan Christopher's life has been derailed.
Taking the fall for a crime she did not commit, her dream of a career in art is put on hold—until a mysterious visitor makes her an offer that will get her released from prison immediately.
Her assignment: restore an old post office mural in a sleepy southern town. Morgan knows nothing about art restoration, but desperate to be free, she accepts. What she finds under the layers of grime is a painting that tells the story of madness, violence, and a conspiracy of small town secrets.
—North Carolina, 1940:
Anna Dale, wins a national contest to paint a mural for the post office in Edenton, North Carolina.
Living in New Jersey, alone in the world and in great need of work, she accepts. But what she doesn't expect is to find herself immersed in a town where prejudices run deep, where people are hiding secrets behind closed doors, and where the price of being different might just end in murder.
What happened to Anna Dale? Are the clues hidden in the decrepit mural? Can Morgan overcome her own demons to discover what exists beneath the layers of lies? (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1950
• Where—Plainfield, New Jersey, USA
• Education—B.A., M.A., San Diego State University
• Awards—RITA Award
• Currently—lives in North Carolina
Diane Chamberlain is the bestselling American author of some 30 novels, primarily surrounding family relationships, love, and forgiveness. Her works have been published in 20 languages. Her best-known books include The Silent Sister (2014), Necessary Lies (2013), and The Secret Life of CeeCee Wilkes (2006).
In her own words:
I was an insatiable reader as a child, and that fact, combined with a vivid imagination, inspired me to write. I penned a few truly terrible "novellas" at age twelve, then put fiction aside for many years as I pursued my education.
I grew up in Plainfield, New Jersey and spent my summers at the Jersey Shore, two settings that have found their way into my novels.
In high school, my favorite authors were the unlikely combination of Victoria Holt and Sinclair Lewis. I loved Holt's flair for romantic suspense and Lewis's character studies as well as his exploration of social values, and both those authors influenced the writer I am today.
I attended Glassboro State College in New Jersey as a special education major before moving to San Diego, where I received both my bachelor's and master's degrees in social work from San Diego State University. After graduating, I worked in a couple of youth counseling agencies and then focused on medical social work, which I adored. I worked at Sharp Hospital in San Diego and Children's Hospital in Washington, D.C. before opening a private psychotherapy practice in Alexandria, Virginia, specializing in adolescents. I reluctantly closed my practice in 1992 when I realized that I could no longer split my time between two careers and be effective at both of them.
It was while I was working in San Diego that I started writing. I'd had a story in my mind since I was a young adolescent about a group of people living together at the Jersey Shore. While waiting for a doctor's appointment one day, I pulled out a pen and pad began putting that story on paper. Once I started, I couldn't stop. I took a class in fiction writing, but for the most part, I "learned by doing." That story, Private Relations, took me four years to complete. I sold it in 1986, but it wasn't published until 1989 (three very long years!), when it earned me the RITA award for Best Single Title Contemporary Novel. Except for a brief stint writing for daytime TV (One Life to Live) and a few miscellaneous articles for newspapers and magazines, I've focused my efforts on book-length fiction and am currently working on my nineteenth novel.
My stories are often filled with mystery and suspense, and–I hope–they also tug at the emotions. Relationships – between men and women, parents and children, sisters and brothers – are always the primary focus of my books. I can't think of anything more fascinating than the way people struggle with life's trials and tribulations, both together and alone.
In the mid-nineties, I was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis, a challenging disease to live with. Although my RA is under good control with medication and I can usually type for many hours a day, I sometimes rely on voice recognition technology to get words on paper. I’m very grateful to the inventor of that software! I lived in Northern Virginia until the summer of 2005, when I moved to North Carolina, the state that inspired so many of my stories and where I live with my significant other, photographer John Pagliuca. I have three grown stepdaughters, three sons-in-law, three grandbabies, and two shelties named Keeper and Jet.
For me, the real joy of writing is having the opportunity to touch readers with my words. I hope that my stories move you in some way and give you hours of enjoyable reading. (With permission from the author's website. Retrieved 6/6/2014.)
Book Reviews
This rich novel from Chamberlain tracks artists whose lives intertwine after a mural is commissioned for a small town.… Chamberlain’s depictions of creative beauty and perseverance across time and in the face of inevitable obstacles will keep readers turning the pages.
Publishers Weekly
Chamberlain's story is a little slow at the start but picks up and becomes a quick and engaging read. Vaguely reminiscent of Donna Tartt's The Goldfinch, this is a good fit for mystery lovers, and the crossover among art, history, and mental health is multifaceted and intriguing. —Chelsie Harris, San Diego Cty. Lib.
Library Journal
A tale of two artists, living 78 years apart in a small Southern town, and the third artist who links them.… One of the strengths here is the creditable depiction of the painter's process…. An engaging, well-researched, and sometimes thought-provoking art mystery.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. How does the prologue introduce us to the novel? What does it leave you wondering about? Did it succeed in making you want to read further?
2. The novel alternates between two time frames and voices—did you feel drawn to the past or present narrative and characters more?
3. Both women suffered terrible and unfair hardship in their lives, can you relate to how they react to it and the choices they make?
4. In the present-day narrative, everyone speculates that Anna lost her mind, and that’s why the mural was finished the way it was. Before what happened to her was revealed, what did you suspect? Were you surprised by what did happen?
5. The novel tackles a lot of tough subject matter within the alternating story-lines. Was there one plot point that resonated with you more than the others?
6. For both of these characters, the mural and art become part of a healing process. For Anna, it is the death of her mother while, for Morgan, it is the accident and time in prison. Is there something similar in your life that has helped you heal from trauma and hardship?
7. As you were reading, did you expect Oliver and Morgan to fall in love? Why or why not? Do you think Oliver is good for Morgan, and vice versa?
8. How did you react to Jesse helping Anna to cover up the murder and in doing so abandoning his life? Do you agree with Anna’s decision to allow him to do so?
9. In chapter 67, Anna and Morgan’s connection is revealed, as is Jesse’s reasoning for requesting that Morgan restore the mural. Did you anticipate this connection?
10. The revelation about Judith Shipley’s true identity is a huge twist at the end of the novel. Did you suspect anything about this? Do you agree with her decision to change her identity completely and start a new life? Would you have come back all those years later?
11. Morgan spends a lot of time thinking about Emily Maxwell and how her actions impacted her life. What do you think about her decision to visit her in the end? Would you have done the same? How do you imagine that visit went?
12. What do you think the future has in store for Morgan?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)