Review by Booklist Review
Updating gothic tropes in her latest, two-time Mary Higgins Clark Award winner Goodman ironically plants a #MeToo-investigating journalist in a converted Magdalene laundry called the Refuge, in upper Manhattan. The building is a veritable fortress. The nuns didn't want anyone to get out, and Joan Lurie doesn't want anyone to get in. Joan was brutally attacked after publishing a seething article that identified a media tycoon as a vicious sexual predator; now, badly concussed, she is struggling to work on a book. Shadowed by an ominous hooded figure, she seldom ventures out. She finds herself oddly drawn to her 96-year-old neighbor, Lillian Day. Lillian has been in hiding at The Refuge since 1941, when she witnessed a gangland murder. Joan's subject has committed suicide, and his wife has moved into the apartment below Joan and is hell-bent on revenge. Their stories mingle in a mesmerizing narrative that culminates in a poignant ending to a brilliant journey. Gothic? Note the phantom lye and bleach stench and wait for it! Make sure fans of Shari Lapena and Alison Gaylin get their hands on this one.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
The same night that magazine journalist Joan Lurie, the narrator of this superior thriller from Mary Higgins Clark Award winner Goodman (The Sea of Lost Girls), celebrates the publication of her article exposing newspaper tycoon Caspar Osgood as a sexual predator, she's attacked outside her Manhattan apartment. With a hefty advance for a book based on her story, Joan moves for her safety into the Refuge, an imposing, high-security building uptown, which once housed unwed mothers who were treated as near prisoners by the resident nuns. Osgood commits suicide in the wake of the exposé, leaving his wife, Melissa, in disgrace with insurmountable debt. Looking for revenge, Melissa moves into the Refuge, planning to discredit Joan's story. Meanwhile, Joan befriends elderly Lillian Day, a longtime Refuge resident, whose tales of her youth resonate with Joan. Joan's discovery of a link between her book and Lillian raises the stakes. The plot takes many terrifying twists and turns en route to the surprising climax. Those with a taste for the gothic will be richly rewarded. Agent: Robin Rue, Writers House. (July)
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Review by Library Journal Review
Attacked after a party celebrating the publication of her exposé about a predatory newspaper tycoon, Joan Lurie retreats to a high-security apartment building in upper Manhattan that was once the Magdalen Laundry and Refuge for Fallen Women. There she meets nonagenarian Lillian, who's hidden out there since the 1940s after witnessing some mob action. From Edgar Award winner Goodman; with a 75,000-copy paperback and 30,000-copy hardcover first printing.
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