A REESE’S BOOK CLUB JULY PICK
A deeply satisfying and enjoyable novel about family, secrets, ghosts and homecoming
‘Entrancing … filled with mystery’ Reese Witherspoon, Reese’s Book Club July Picks
‘I could not put this book down’ Ann Napolitano, author of Hello Beautiful
‘Compulsively readable … funny, heartbreaking’ Oprah Daily
On a secluded cliff overlooking the ocean sits a Victorian house that contains a century’s worth of secrets. By the time Jane Flanagan discovers the house as a teenager, it has long been abandoned – yet there are still clothes in the closets, marbles rolling across the floors, and dishes in the cupboards. The place is an irresistible mystery to Jane, and becomes a hideaway for her, a place to escape her troubled, volatile mother.
Twenty years later, now a Harvard archivist, she returns home to Maine following a terrible mistake that threatens both her career and her marriage. Jane is horrified to find the Victorian is now barely recognizable. The new owner, Genevieve, a summer person from Beacon Hill, has gutted it, transforming the house into a glossy white monstrosity straight out of a magazine. Convinced that the house is haunted, Genevieve hires Jane to research the history of the place and the women who lived there. The story Jane uncovers – of lovers lost at sea, romantic longing, shattering loss, artistic awakening, historical artefacts stolen and sold, and the long shadow of colonialism – is even older than Maine itself …
A deeply satisfying and enjoyable novel about family, secrets, ghosts and homecoming
‘Entrancing … filled with mystery’ Reese Witherspoon, Reese’s Book Club July Picks
‘I could not put this book down’ Ann Napolitano, author of Hello Beautiful
‘Compulsively readable … funny, heartbreaking’ Oprah Daily
On a secluded cliff overlooking the ocean sits a Victorian house that contains a century’s worth of secrets. By the time Jane Flanagan discovers the house as a teenager, it has long been abandoned – yet there are still clothes in the closets, marbles rolling across the floors, and dishes in the cupboards. The place is an irresistible mystery to Jane, and becomes a hideaway for her, a place to escape her troubled, volatile mother.
Twenty years later, now a Harvard archivist, she returns home to Maine following a terrible mistake that threatens both her career and her marriage. Jane is horrified to find the Victorian is now barely recognizable. The new owner, Genevieve, a summer person from Beacon Hill, has gutted it, transforming the house into a glossy white monstrosity straight out of a magazine. Convinced that the house is haunted, Genevieve hires Jane to research the history of the place and the women who lived there. The story Jane uncovers – of lovers lost at sea, romantic longing, shattering loss, artistic awakening, historical artefacts stolen and sold, and the long shadow of colonialism – is even older than Maine itself …
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Reviews
A dilapidated lavender mansion, perched high on a craggy bluff in Maine, turns out to be more than a home: It's the key to a century of hopes, misdeeds and family ghosts
Sullivan writes with her usual compassion, insight, and sensitivity ... and poses powerful questions about how to right the wrongs of the past
Sullivan thoughtfully explores both Jane's inner life and the history of the Maine coast, weaving stories of settlers, Shakers, and Indigenous inhabitants of the area with the contemporary plot. Jane is a complex character shaped by her past and trying to figure out her future, and her research leads to an overarching theme: whose story is remembered and told, and why?
The Cliffs is a stunning achievement, and J. Courtney Sullivan's best book yet. Sullivan weaves a narrative that's fascinating and thought-provoking. I literally could not put this book down
Archivist Jane Flanagan returns to her coastal Maine hometown to discover that the long-abandoned gothic house she was obsessed with as a teen has a new owner. Genevieve, a wealthy outsider, has given the once-dilapidated dwelling a misbegotten makeover that she believes has awakened something sinister. In this provocative ghost story that questions how we right our wrongs of the past, the two must team up to rid the mysterious 19th-century home of its spirits and overcome their own demons
J. Courtney Sullivan is so skilled at multi-threaded narratives, and this is her most ambitious book yet. Weaving together the stories of women in Maine over centuries, this novel is about maternal loss and trauma, the idea of home, and most affecting, the stories that remain untold
Sullivan has found the perfect heroine for her compulsively readable novel. Funny, beleaguered, heartbreaking - Jane is a woman who just wants to pull together and will do anything to make that happen. Even if means following the cryptic clues of a possibly fraudulent psychic ...
Fascinating, riveting ... this skilful novel makes the case that knowing what came before offers us our best chance to truly understand our connections to one another