From Powells.com
Our favorite books of the year.
Synopses & Reviews
Gillian Flynn’s Edgar Award-winning homage to the classic ghost story, published for the first time as a standalone
A
canny young woman is struggling to survive by perpetrating various
levels of mostly harmless fraud. On a rainy April morning, she is
reading auras at Spiritual Palms when Susan Burke walks in. A keen
observer of human behavior, our unnamed narrator immediately diagnoses
beautiful, rich Susan as an unhappy woman eager to give her lovely life a
drama injection. However, when the “psychic” visits the eerie Victorian
home that has been the source of Susan’s terror and grief, she realizes
she may not have to pretend to believe in ghosts anymore. Miles,
Susan’s teenage stepson, doesn’t help matters with his disturbing manner
and grisly imagination. The three are soon locked in a chilling battle
to discover where the evil truly lurks and what, if anything, can be
done to escape it.
“The Grownup,” which originally appeared as “What Do You Do?” in George R. R. Martin’s Rogues anthology, proves once again that Gillian Flynn is one of the world’s most original and skilled voices in fiction.
About the Author
GILLIAN FLYNN is the author of the runaway hit Gone Girl, an international sensation that has spent more than ninety-five weeks on the New York Times bestseller list. Her work has been published in forty languages. Gone Girl is a major motion picture from Twentieth Century Fox. Flynn’s previous novels, Dark Places and Dagger Award winner Sharp Objects, were also New York Times bestsellers. A former writer and critic for Entertainment Weekly, she lives in Chicago with her husband and children.