Sunday 17 May 2020

3 Dark ARCs this Spring





1. The Loyalties by Delphine de Vigan 

Twelve-year-old Théo and his friend Mathis have a secret. Their teacher, Hélène, suspects something is not right with Théo and becomes obsessed with rescuing him, casting aside her professionalism to the point of no return.

Cécile, mother of Mathis, discovers something horrifying on her husband's computer that makes her question whether she has ever truly known him.

Respectable facades are peeled away as the lives of these four characters collide, moving rapidly toward a shocking conclusion. Delphine de Vigan has crafted a lean, darkly gripping, and compulsively readable novel about lies, loneliness, and loyalties.


Buzzwords: 
  • Domestic thriller
  • Child protagonists
  • Secrets

Releases on: July 21st 2020 
Find out moreGoodreads 



2. How to Walk on Water by Rachel Swearingen 

In this spellbinding debut story collection, characters willingly open their doors to trouble. An investment banker falls for a self-made artist who turns the rooms of her apartment into eerie art installations. An au pair imagines her mundane life as film noir, endangering the infant in her care. A son pieces together the brutal attack his mother survived when he was a baby. 

These stories bristle with menace and charm with intimate revelations. Through nimble prose and considerable powers of observation, Swearingen takes us from Chicago, Minneapolis, and Northern Michigan, to Seattle, Venice, and elsewhere. She explores not only what it means to survive in a world marked by violence and uncertainty, but also how to celebrate what is most alive.

Buzzwords: 
  • Charming & quirky
  • Loneliness
  • Unsettling
Releases on: September 1st 2020 
Find out more: Goodreads 




3. The Beguiling by Zsuzsi Gartner 

It all starts when her cousin Zoltan, in hospital following a bizarre incident at a party, offers her a disturbing deathbed confession. Lucy's grief takes an unusual turn: Zoltan's death appears to have turned her into a magnet for the unshriven. Lucy is transformed into a self-described "flesh-and-blood Wailing Wall" as strangers unburden themselves to her. She becomes addicted to the dark stories, finds herself jonesing for hit after hit.

As the confessions pile up, Lucy begins to wonder if Zoltan's death was as random and unscripted as it appeared. She clutches at alarming synchronicities, seeks meaning in the stories of strangers. Why do the stories seem connected to each other or eerily echo elements of her life? Could it be because Lucy has her own transgressions to acknowledge? And then there is that stubbornly resurfacing past, like a tell-tale ribbon of hair snagged on a fish hook.


Buzzwords: 
  • Religious themes 
  • Unlikeable characters 
  • Horror 

Releases on: September 22nd 2020
Find out moreGoodreads 

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