Cliffs

A REESE'S BOOK CLUB JULY PICKA 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 DailyOn 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 ...

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, 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 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 ..., 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 writes with her usual compassion, insight, and sensitivity ... and poses powerful questions about how to right the wrongs of the past

J. Courtney Sullivan is the New York Times bestselling author of the novels Commencement, Maine, The Engagements, Saints For All Occasions, and Friends and Strangers. Courtney's writing has also appeared in The New York Times Book Review, The Chicago Tribune, New York Magazine, Elle, Glamour, Allure, Real Simple, and O: The Oprah Magazine, among many others. She is a co-editor, with Courtney Martin, of the essay anthology Click: When We Knew We Were Feminists. Courtney lives in Massachusetts with her husband and two children.