Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
Julianna Durrell, best known for her "FemJep" (female in jeopardy) performances on film, fears her roles are proving prophetic. "I have spent the winter at my summer place, " the novel begins. Julianna's "wedding cake" Victorian summerhouse is transformed into a real-life snowbound set for terror. Her panic deepens as painful questions emerge about what really happened the night her marriage ended in violence and she is forced to enact the role of a lifetime -- to save her own life. With rich atmosphere and hairpin plot twists that evoke film classics like Laura and Gaslight, the exquisite narrative reinvents the genre in which its heroine stars. The question is not so much "whodunnit?" as "who are we?" Julianna's narrative, full of wit, insight, and dramatic irony, ultimately asks -- When does passion become possession? Do we ever know another person, even the one we love? Is every marriage a mystery? Can love turn lethal?
About the Author
Laura Shaine Cunningham is the author of
Beautiful Bodies, A Place in the Country, and
Sleeping Arrangements. A playwright and journalist, she has been published in
The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, and
The New York Times. She is a native New Yorker.