Staff Pick
This book had a thriller vibe to it, but is more like a dark literary commentary about class, family, and the way lust's boundaries can be broken. Stevens writes with sharp descriptions, cutting emotion, and touches of dark humor. The last chunk of the book is especially charged and exciting.
Choice quote: "Beauty is pain because it is not eternal." Recommended By Kevin S., Powells.com
Synopses & Reviews
Review
"Devotion is frighteningly perceptive about the ways women see each other, use each other, hurt each other. Madeline Stevens' debut novel dares to let jealousy and obsession lead its characters to the places we fear most." Rebecca Schiff, author of The Bed Moved
Review
"Madeline Stevens has written a thrilling, evocative book about intimacy, identity, and the alien nature lodged at the heart of the people we think we know the best." Alexandra Kleeman, author of You Too Can Have A Body Like Mine
Review
"...A darkly glittering jewel from a promising new voice in thrillers." Kirkus Reviews
Review
"Devotion stages the dangerous yet mesmerizing knot made when desire wrestles envy.... This book will make your heart race. This story will make you sweat in the best way." Lidia Yuknavitch, author of The Book of Joan
Synopsis
A captivating debut novel about a woman who falls into an overwhelming mutual obsession with the Upper East Side mother who hires her as a nanny
Ella is flat broke: wasting away on bodega coffee, barely making rent, seducing the occasional strange man who might buy her dinner. Unexpectedly, an Upper East Side couple named Lonnie and James rescue her from her empty bank account, offering her a job as a nanny and ushering her into their moneyed world. Ella's days are now spent tending to the baby in their elegant brownstone or on extravagant excursions with the family. Both women are just 26 — but unlike Ella, Lonnie has a doting husband and son, unmistakable artistic talent, and old family money.
Ella is mesmerized by Lonnie's girlish affection and disregard for the normal boundaries of friendship and marriage. Convinced there must be a secret behind Lonnie's seemingly effortless life, Ella begins sifting through her belongings, meticulously cataloguing lipstick tubes and baby teeth and scraps of writing. All the while, Ella's resentment grows, but so does an inexplicable and dizzying attraction. Soon Ella will be immersed so deeply in her cravings — for Lonnie's lifestyle, her attention, her lovers — that she may never come up for air.
Riveting, propulsive, and startling, Devotion is a masterful debut novel where mismatched power collides with blinding desire, incinerating our perceptions of femininity, lust, and privilege.
About the Author
Madeline Stevens is a writer from Boring, Oregon, currently based in Los Angeles. She holds an MFA from Columbia University and her work has been published in a variety of literary magazines. She spent seven years working as a nanny in New York City. Devotion is her first novel.