Tag: Contempo Lit

In January, I was lucky enough to get to review UNBECOMING by Rebecca Scherm! It was a complex thriller that had a bit of an edgy, gritty side which I loved!

Now this wonderful read is out in paperback just in time for the holidays! If you are needing to pick up a last minute gift for the reader on your list this would be a good option!

Here is a little bit about the novel: UNBECOMING is a novel of literary suspense about a small-town girl who dabbles in self-forgery even before being swept into the world of international art fraud—but then makes herself at home in a dangerous, dare-devil milieu far from everything she once knew. Scherm’s delicately nuanced heist novel has echoes of Alfred Hitchcock and Patricia Highsmith, and earned wide praise and comparisons to Gillian Flynn and Donna Tartt.

On the grubby outskirts of Paris, Grace restores bric-a-brac, mends teapots, and re-sets gems. She calls herself Julie, says she’s from California, and slips back to a rented room at night.  Furtively, she checks her hometown newspaper online. Back in Garland, Tennessee, two young men have been paroled and Grace knows that once they are free, her life will not be her own.

Riley Graham was the charming, favored small-town son who made Grace his when the two were very young.  Embraced by Riley’s family, especially his mother,  Grace polished her role as surrogate daughter and idealized girlfriend.

But she stumbles over a dark passion for Riley’s best friend, and flees Garland for Manhattan, NYU, and a seedy job with an art appraiser to pave her way into the competitive social scene. This leads only to dropping out and landing back home, broke and shaken.  There, using her new skills and a knack for re-invention, Grace begins methodically to plan a robbery of a local historical museum with Riley and his friends.

The heist goes bad—but not before Grace is on a plane to Prague with a stolen canvas rolled in her bag, a new haircut, and a new name.  And so begins a cat-and-mouse waiting game as Grace’s web of deception and lies unravels. Which part of her past will catch up with her first?

UNBECOMING is a major debut novel of literary suspense about a small-town girl who dabbles in self-forgery even before being swept into the world of international art fraud—but then makes herself at home in a dangerous, dare-devil milieu far from everything she once knew.

Continue reading “Paperback Release: UNBECOMING by Rebecca Scherm” →

On DECEMBER 1ST Gilly Macmillan releases her thrilling novel in paperback!

WHAT SHE KNEW by Gilly Macmillan is an addictive domestic thriller that William Morrow will publish as a paperback original on December 1^st.

The novel, which Liane Moriarty calls “an amazing, gripping, beautifully written debut,” was published in the UK earlier this year to incredible praise (see below), and has drawn comparisons to hugely popular thrillers like Before I Go To Sleep and Gone Girl. This novel shows how one seemingly ordinary decision can change your life forever.

Quick Take: On an ordinary day, Rachel Jenner is out for a walk in the woods with her eight-year-old son Ben. The woods lead to a local park that they’ve been to many times before, so when Ben ask to run ahead, it seems like a normal request. Then Ben disappears.

Police are called, search parties go out, and Rachel begs for the public to help bring her son back. Rachel is caught between her personal pain and a public jumping to condemn her for her mistakes. As the public’s attitude shifts from sympathy to suspicion, Rachel begins to lose trust in everyone. She soon realizes that the greatest dangers lie not only in strangers, but in the faces of those most familiar to her.

Told from the alternating points of view of Rachel and the lead detective on the case, this story is full of unreliable narrators, questions about the media’s role in the disappearance, and the spectacle of true crime. WHAT SHE KNEW will keep you guessing until the very end.

Pick up your copy here! 

About the author

Gilly Macmillan grew up in Swindon, Wiltshire and also lived in Northern California in her late teens. She studied History of Art at Bristol University and then at the Courtauld Institute of Art in London. She worked at The Burlington Magazine and the Hayward Gallery before starting a family. Since then she’s worked as a part-time lecturer in A Level Photography and a full-time mum.

Gilly lives in Bristol with her husband and three children. WHAT SHE KNEW is her first novel.