A deliciously inventive thriller brimming with sex, secrets, and scandal.
Faye Adelheim has it all—a wealthy, handsome husband, an expensive home, and a beautiful little girl. But when her fairy-tale life fractures, how far will she go to exact revenge?
Läckberg, the mistress of Scandinavian noir, returns with a smart riff on women’s thrillers: This is Big Little Lies meets Gone Girl with some 9 to 5 tossed in for good measure. Having grown up in a small town, Faye independently makes her way to Stockholm changes her name, and eventually secures a spot in the prestigious Stockholm School of Economics, where she meets her best friend, Chris, and her future husband, Jack. While Jack builds his first business (virtually forgetting that Faye helped come up with the idea for the company), Faye abandons her studies to support them by waiting tables. She even signs a prenuptial agreement that guarantees her nothing, trusting in Jack’s love. Once married, Faye stays home, her career essentially dead, but Jack’s thrives, emboldening him to insult and degrade her. And while Jack’s business takes him on glamorous trips, Faye finds herself killing time and numbing her pain by drinking with the other women caught in golden cages. That is, until she discovers Jack's affair; their divorce leaves her practically penniless. Despite her pitiful predicament, Faye isn’t entirely without resources. Certainly, she has Chris, who's founded her own hair-care empire and become a wildly successful businesswoman. She also has rage, and she quickly channels that rage into her business acumen, developing a plan not only to take down Jack, but also to market a product to jilted woman (and isn’t that nearly all women?). Yet as Faye begins dismantling Jack’s life, Läckberg deftly teases the reader by dropping clues to Faye’s dark past. We can’t help but wonder if she’s done this before.
A deliciously inventive thriller brimming with sex, secrets, and scandal.Pub Date: July 7, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-525-65797-2
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: April 12, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2020
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.
A woman accused of shooting her husband six times in the face refuses to speak.
"Alicia Berenson was thirty-three years old when she killed her husband. They had been married for seven years. They were both artists—Alicia was a painter, and Gabriel was a well-known fashion photographer." Michaelides' debut is narrated in the voice of psychotherapist Theo Faber, who applies for a job at the institution where Alicia is incarcerated because he's fascinated with her case and believes he will be able to get her to talk. The narration of the increasingly unrealistic events that follow is interwoven with excerpts from Alicia's diary. Ah, yes, the old interwoven diary trick. When you read Alicia's diary you'll conclude the woman could well have been a novelist instead of a painter because it contains page after page of detailed dialogue, scenes, and conversations quite unlike those in any journal you've ever seen. " 'What's the matter?' 'I can't talk about it on the phone, I need to see you.' 'It's just—I'm not sure I can make it up to Cambridge at the minute.' 'I'll come to you. This afternoon. Okay?' Something in Paul's voice made me agree without thinking about it. He sounded desperate. 'Okay. Are you sure you can't tell me about it now?' 'I'll see you later.' Paul hung up." Wouldn't all this appear in a diary as "Paul wouldn't tell me what was wrong"? An even more improbable entry is the one that pins the tail on the killer. While much of the book is clumsy, contrived, and silly, it is while reading passages of the diary that one may actually find oneself laughing out loud.
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-30169-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A vibrant tale of a remarkable woman.
Who was Shakespeare?
Move over, Earl of Oxford and Francis Bacon: There’s another contender for the true author of plays attributed to the bard of Stratford—Emilia Bassano, a clever, outspoken, educated woman who takes center stage in Picoult’s spirited novel. Of Italian heritage, from a family of court musicians, Emilia was a hidden Jew and the courtesan of a much older nobleman who vetted plays to be performed for Queen Elizabeth. She was well traveled—unlike Shakespeare, she visited Italy and Denmark, where, Picoult imagines, she may have met Rosencrantz and Guildenstern—and was familiar with court intrigue and English law. “Every gap in Shakespeare’s life or knowledge that has had to be explained away by scholars, she somehow fills,” Picoult writes. Encouraged by her lover, Emilia wrote plays and poetry, but 16th-century England was not ready for a female writer. Picoult interweaves Emilia’s story with that of her descendant Melina Green, an aspiring playwright, who encounters the same sexist barriers to making herself heard that Emilia faced. In alternating chapters, Picoult follows Melina’s frustrated efforts to get a play produced—a play about Emilia, who Melina is certain sold her work to Shakespeare. Melina’s play, By Any Other Name, “wasn’t meant to be a fiction; it was meant to be the resurrection of an erasure.” Picoult creates a richly detailed portrait of daily life in Elizabethan England, from sumptuous castles to seedy hovels. Melina’s story is less vivid: Where Emilia found support from the witty Christopher Marlowe, Melina has a fashion-loving gay roommate; where Emilia faces the ravages of repeated outbreaks of plague, for Melina, Covid-19 occurs largely offstage; where Emilia has a passionate affair with the adoring Earl of Southampton, Melina’s lover is an awkward New York Times theater critic. It’s Emilia’s story, and Picoult lovingly brings her to life.
A vibrant tale of a remarkable woman.Pub Date: Aug. 20, 2024
ISBN: 9780593497210
Page Count: 544
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2024
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