The Things You Can Read: It's Monday What Are You Reading? September 2, 2013

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Monday, September 2, 2013

It's Monday What Are You Reading? September 2, 2013

It's Monday What Are You Reading?

I just finished reading After Her: A Novel by Joyce Maynard. My review will post tomorrow, Tuesday, September 3, 2013.

Title: After Her: A Novel

Author: Joyce Maynard

Genre: Mystery/Thriller/Suspense

Themes: Coming of Age, Familial Relationships, Identity, Divorce, Loss of Innocence

Setting: Marin County, California 1979

Point of View: First Person Voice of Rachel Toricelli

Publisher/Publication Date: Published August 20, 2013 by William Morrow

First Line: "A little over thirty years ago. on a June day just before sunset-aloe on a mountain in Marin County, California-a man came toward me with a length of piano wire stretched between his hands, and the intention of ending my days." After Her: A Novel by Joyce Maynard

Summary Courtesy of Goodreads:

The New York Times bestselling author of Labor Day and The Good Daughters returns with a warm and haunting novel of sisterhood, adolescence, sacrifice, and suspense

"Maynard illuminates the human experience."-People magazine

It's the summer of 1979, and a dry, hot, northern California school vacation stretches ahead for Rachel and her younger sister Patty-the daughters a larger-than-life, irresistibly handsome and chronically unfaithful detective father who loves to make women happy, and the mother whose heart he broke.

Left to their own devices, the inseparable sisters spend their days studying record jackets, concocting elaborate fantasies about the life of the mysterious neighbor who moves in down the street, and playing dangerous games on the mountain that rises up behind their house.

When young women start showing up dead on the mountain, the girls' father is charged with finding the man responsible, known as The Sunset Strangler. Seeing her father's life slowly unravel when he fails to stop the murders, Rachel embarks on her most dangerous game yet: setting herself up as bait to catch the killer, with consequences that will destroy her father's career and alter the lives of everyone she loves.

It is not until thirty years later that Rachel, who has never given up hope of vindicating her father, finally smokes out the killer, bringing her back to the territory of her childhood, and uncovering a long-buried family secret.

As with her novel, Labor Day, Maynard's newest work is part thriller, part love story, Loosely inspired by the Trailside Killer case that terrorized Marin County in the late seventies, her tale delves deep into the alternately thrilling and terrifying landscape of a young girl's first explorations of adult sexuality and the loss of innocence, the bond between sisters-and into a daughter's tender but damaged relationship with her father, and what it is to finally trust a man.

Does After Her: A Novel by Joyce Maynard grab your attention? Is it a novel you'd be interested in reading? Have you read any books by this author? Let us know here at The Things You Can Read!

What are you reading? Let us know here at The Things You Can Read.