Elliott pens paranoia-racked mystery
A mysterious argument. A seductive student. A mystical clock. And a shocking series of breakins that begin to seem less like a coincidence.
Thriller Author Lexie Elliott returns with a paranoia-racked mystery set at an academic retreat in the idyllic French Alps, aptly titled “Bright and Deadly Things.” Mostly taking place from the recently widowed Emily Rivers’ point of view, the novel is also scattered with diary entries revealing more about the party of Oxford professors, grads and undergrads, as well as the history of the chalet via previous parties’ journal entries. All are written in an urgent yet thoughtful first-person present tense that feels smooth and keeps pages flowing.
When Emily misses her flight, she comes home in the midst of a break-in. Later, it seems someone is snooping through her things at the chalet. Emily begins to suspect her fellow “chaletites” as more and more strange behavior bubbles up among the cast of 13 academics.
In an added layer of peculiarity, this year’s trip to the Chalet des Anglais coincides with the 100th anniversary of it burning down. And the grandfather clock that somehow survived the fire has suddenly turned up after being missing for decades.
“Bright and Deadly Things” features a special kind of psychological horror that’s just as terrifying in the dark of night as it is in the light of day.
Between Emily’s uncertainty in her own mental state after the death of her husband, and the persistent intrusive thoughts peppered throughout, the novel is shrouded in doubt so thick it’s hard to know as a reader what’s real without flipping back to verify for yourself. ‘Bright and Deadly Things’
By Lexie Elliott; Berkley, 384 pages, $28.
But if you’re worried Elliott will leave something hanging, have no fear: It’s pretty well wrapped by the end of the trip, and a couple of super-late twists tie up the remaining loose ends. — Donna Edwards, Associated Press
There have always been impressionable young
people who fall for older men — teachers and other mentors — and there have always been older men who have taken advantage of these crushes. But rarely has their story been told as thoughtfully as in Daisy Alpert Florin’s intelligent and sensuous debut novel, “My Last Innocent Year,” a remarkable coming-of-age story that examines sexual politics, power, lust and the sometimes murky nature of romantic encounters.
Florin sets the seduction between Connelly, a professor, and Isabel, his student, on a college campus in New Hampshire during Isabel’s senior year. It’s the late 1990s, and the drama of President
Bill Clinton’s relationship with Monica Lewinsky is unfolding, a backdrop for the questions this novel poses: When is a sexual encounter considered rape? When is it consensual? Is it possible for there to be something in
between? How does power affect relationships? And can power shift?
Isabel is beautiful but doesn’t know it, brilliant but doesn’t believe it, lonely and looking for affirmation. Affirmation comes in the form of Connelly, the washed-up married adjunct professor who takes over her English writing workshop. Smoldering glances and praise of her talent quickly combust into steamy afternoons on the couch in Connelly’s office.
The novel is narrated by present-day Isabel, now middle-aged and a successful author looking back on that time. It’s an approach that provides perspective and allows the reader to understand that she has come through this safely, if not unscathed. “There was, I can see now, a kernel of self-preservation at my center, a belief in myself and my future,” she writes.
The unfortunate final section, with contemporary Isabel trying to track down Connelly all these years later, serves no real purpose. But those confusing pages do not detract from the power of the rest of the narrative.