Wednesday, March 08, 2017

Six top novels in which nothing is as it seems

At the B&N Reads blog Jeff Somers tagged six "novels [that] make you think you know what’s going on, only to completely twist you up when you’re done reading," including:
Dead Letters, by Caite Dolan-Leach

In Dolan-Leach’s debut novel, Ava Antipova returns home to upstate New York when her twin sister, Zelda, dies in a barn fire. Ava arrives suspicious; the dramatic death is precisely what Zelda would have chosen for her demise. As Ava navigates her unhappy, alcoholic family and an old school flame, she discovers Zelda’s burner phone—and begins to receive emails and texts from her sister. What follows is a scavenger hunt and puzzle as Ava chases down clues, which is convenient considering her field of study involves literary mysteries. As Ava creeps towards the solution, there are false starts and red herrings, but the picture that slowly coalesces is affecting and forces the reader to reevaluate the assumptions they began with.
Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue