HELPLESS

A Hollywood writer returns to her college town for a funeral only to get pulled back into the complicated relationships she left behind.

Faye Heron knows she never would have launched her successful career without the support of Professor Toner, or PT, her former professor. So when he dies unexpectedly, she returns to the small town in upstate New York that’s so full of memories, and that she’s avoided for most of the last decade. She’s anxious to see PT’s nephews, Campbell and Henry, the former a good friend and the latter an ex-boyfriend who inspired one of her first writing credits for television. In sharing some of the intimate details of their relationship, she feels both vindicated in having spoken her truth and afraid that Henry might be angry. Because their relationship, in which Henry dominated a submissive Faye, was also an obsessive one: sexual, raw, and often violent. As she struggles to control and to understand her reawakened feelings for Henry, Faye discovers that PT’s death may not have been natural. When Henry blackmails Faye into accompanying him to a remote family cabin for a week, she finds herself drawn back into their dangerous dynamic: Even as he threatens her, she desires him. The ending offers an interesting retrospective frame for the rest of the novel as Faye makes a pitch to sell her story after the fact. With a tongue-in-cheek reference to Fifty Shades of Grey, Knoll tackles the elephant in the room, and then goes on: “But how do you do an elevated version of that in today’s climate? It’s a delicate line to walk and no one is even trying.” Well, Knoll is, and true to form, she absolutely goes there in this novel, offering a nuanced and unapologetic portrait of an unconventional relationship without judgment.

Puts the “erotic” back in “erotic thriller.”