The Cliffs

Description

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 …