Helpless
A Novel
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- ¥1,900
発行者による作品情報
A USA TODAY BESTSELLER!
From the New York Times bestselling author of Luckiest Girl Alive and Bright Young Women comes a "sexy new thriller" (New York Post) about a successful Hollywood producer who is kidnapped by the man who once knew her best—and the devastating secret that could destroy them both.
Faye Heron has an enviable life. Her work on an acclaimed television show built professional bridges and burned personal ones. Now, she’s one half of a power-producing duo with her Hollywood husband. Beautiful, rich, and successful, Faye has spent years believing her version of the past and using it as material for her writing.
Then, her former film professor passes away, and the funeral brings her back to her college campus and face to face with the man she she barely escaped.
Henry Spalding was Faye’s first love, whose presence still looms large in her mind. Their connection was obsessive, intoxicating, impossible to replicate. Because Henry is one of a kind.
The kind who delivers a hypnotic apology for the way things ended. The kind who suggests they go back to the hotel for a drink. The kind who drugs and kidnaps her.
When Faye wakes up bound and imprisoned in Henry’s isolated mountain cabin, she’s forced to confront a terrifying possibility: this may not be about revenge. As the days pass, Faye begins to chip away at the truth. What was the real cause of her professor’s death? And could it have something to do with why Henry has brought her here? Most jarring of all—what really happened all those years ago with Henry? Is it possible her version of the past cannot be trusted?
With every revelation, the walls close in. As Faye and Henry are pulled back into the toxic, magnetic bond that nearly destroyed them once before, a sprawling, years-old mystery begins to take shape, rewriting history as Faye remembers it and building to a “shocking and mind-bending” (SheReads) final page.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A Hollywood heavyweight's reunion with her former flame turns dangerous in this provocative if problematic page-turner from bestseller Knoll (Bright Young Women). Actor/writer/director Faye Heron returns to her alma matter in the Adirondacks for the first time in 12 years to speak at the funeral of her mentor, film professor Patrick Toner. In attendance is Patrick's hunky nephew, Henry Spalding, a college ex of Faye's whom she's never completely gotten over. Despite Faye's enviable career and marriage to her writing/producing partner, all it takes is one look into Henry's ink-blue eyes to arouse her dormant, decade-old lust. But instead of the X-rated romp Faye fantasizes about, she wakes up woozy and locked inside Henry's isolated cabin. At first blush, it seems like Faye is in dire straits. But is she? Kidnapping, blackmail, and murder enter the frame as Knoll unfurls her devious tale, but the high degree of gamesmanship between the leads makes it increasingly difficult to distinguish between real danger and role-play. The whiplash-inducing twists are fun for a while, but the plot's uncomfortable sexual dynamics eventually become a liability, and Faye and Henry feel more like plot devices than three-dimensional characters. Readers will hope Knoll's next outing marks a return to form.
