The main character A novel

Review by Booklist Review

The Main Character is an overt nod to notable author Agatha Christie and an entertaining modern-day mystery. Rory Aronov is adrift after losing her dream job and her fiancé. Limited on funds and unsure of where to turn to, Rory accepts an offer from a famous murder mystery writer, Ginevra Ex, to be interviewed as inspiration for Ginevra's main character in her upcoming novel. As a bonus, Ginevra books Rory a three-day, first-class train ticket on the newly renovated Venice Simplon Orient Express that is traveling through Italy. However, this dream trip turns into a nightmare of unexpected guests, secrets, and betrayals. Why are Rory's ex-fiancé, best friend, and big brother here? What secrets do they hide? It becomes apparent that there is more to Ginevra and this train ride than meets the eye. An enjoyable read that encompasses a bit of Ukrainian history, the burden of expectations, and the intricacies of familial bonds. Multiple points of view provide insight into each individual character and all is revealed with no shortage of shocking twists.

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.

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Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

A bestselling author pays ordinary people for the right to model her protagonists on them in the disappointing latest from Goldis (The Chateau). In exchange for $100,000, individuals agree to answer personal questions, undergo psychological evaluations, and have their lives probed by Ginerva Ex's private investigators. Her "latest, and finest, main character," Rory, has recently been fired from her job as a news anchor for running an error-ridden story. In addition to providing Rory with the standard stipend, Ginerva has invited her on an extravagant train trip across Italy aboard the Orient Express. Rory's elation turns to bafflement, however, when she discovers they'll be joined by her ex-fiancé, her brother, and her best friend. As Goldis gradually reveals the secrets of each person in Rory's orbit, Ginerva's unorthodox writing methods start to look more and more sinister. Per the prologue, readers know someone will die, Agatha Christie--style, on this European vacation. Unfortunately, Goldis goes too heavy on the red herrings, and her clumsy prose doesn't help ("I clasp my fingers around the smooth ticket, relieved that my mouth can still eject speech"). Despite the strong premise, this runs out of steam quickly. Agent: Rachel Ekstrom, Folio Literary. (May)

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Review by Kirkus Book Review

Goldis' metamystery takes inspiration from one of Agatha Christie's most famous stories. In The Chateau (2023), Goldis lured readers into a locked-room murder mystery, a favorite Christie plot device, setting the tale in Provence. Her latest twisty tale of deception takes place, in part, aboard the newly restored Orient Express, and it's as much a colorful travelogue as a tale of suspense. Rory Aronov is ensconced in the luxury train's most expensive compartment courtesy of the reclusive bestselling author Ginevra Ex. But three days before Rory boards the train, we witness Ginevra hovering over a dead body. It's a cinematic and bloody scene that immediately pulls the reader in. The trip, along the west coast of Italy, is a thank-you gift from Ginevra because Rory was the inspiration for the author's most recent novel. Ginevra has written many books; each time, she buys a real person's backstory, fictionalizes it, and molds it into a bestseller. So why, then, is Rory's brother, Max, on the train, as well as her former fiance, Nate, and her friend Caroline? And why have copies of Ginevra's new book been stolen before Rory and her companions can read them? Is someone toying with them? Narrating the book in alternating chapters, Goldis' travelers are provocatively unreliable, and the sense of uncertainty they bring to the story laces it with foreboding and danger. The purple-haired Ginevra is equally unreliable, and as her backstory unfolds, we realize she may be connected to Rory and company; the only question is how. Goldis unceasingly pits her characters against each other, just as Ginevra does in her novel, and the parallels between Ginevra's novel and Goldis' build delicious tension and drama. Grab your suitcase and board the Orient Express for a trip you won't soon forget. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

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Chapter One: Ginevra CHAPTER ONE Ginevra For Ginevra Ex, bloody, murdered bodies were par for the course. Ginevra had poisoned and stabbed with the best of them. She'd decapitated, shot, and even had a victim killed while skydiving (framed as an accident). The New Yorker had called that one "ingenious." But a murder conducted by pen--blood contained to a page that was summarily flipped--well, that was quite different from standing over the dead body of someone you loved. Ginevra averted her eyes from the face caught midscream. How had it come to this? How? Ginevra had been especially proud of her latest book. She'd spun pages with characters still tangy on her tongue. Characters closely inspired by people who existed in real life. Then she'd arranged those unsuspecting people on this very train. She had awaited this moment, the end of their journey in sight. The perfect trip. Culminating in the sweet, sweet End. In the end, it wasn't as she'd intended. Not even close. Because dead . Not alive. The train chugged along, the treetops whizzing by in a black, bushy haze, and in the darkness and her grief, Ginevra felt her footing give way. She was fifty-nine, but she lumbered as someone decades older, her limbs laden in flesh, not sprightly enough to quickly catch herself. Instead she toppled down onto the body, cheek to blood. She gagged a bit, but still she reached over, grappling across the still chest. For a hug. Their first. Her own flesh and blood . She clutched the body to hers. Still disbelieving. How in the world had it come to this ? Ginevra was a plotter, after all. Not a pantser . Plotting versus pantsing --that eternal vociferous debate used by writers to distract themselves from just sitting down and doing the damn thing. While all those midlist authors, whose names no one would ever know, bandied about pros and cons of writing methods, Ginevra--the wealthiest author in the world after J. K. Rowling--simply wrote. Furiously. Successfully. Stratospherically. One book a year, starring her main character du jour. Always an instant #1 New York Times bestseller, except for her most recent publication, a disappointing launch that had hardly taken the literary world by storm and had even left her off the bestseller lists. The book had garnered a barrage of angry, critical reviews alleging the murder was flawed, the twists too obvious, the main character a cardboard cutout. Worse yet--that Ginevra was losing her golden touch. But oh, how she'd planned to redeem herself with her latest manuscript and its grand finale: this trip on the Orient Express. Ginevra had assembled all her characters, meticulously dropped clues, laid all the traps. Tightened the noose. But she hadn't foreseen this. She scooted back from the body. Tears mingled with her heavy black winged eyeliner and mascara, applied always from the middle of her eye rather than the inner corner, exactly like her idol, Sophia Loren. Although in every other way, Ginevra was the opposite of Sophia Loren. Ginevra was tubby and short, barely grazing five foot, with hair once chestnut but now her signature purple red. Her skin was mottled, and her nose crooked--like a rugby player, her twin sister, Orsola, had once said, wriggling her own pert nose. Orsola also had warm brown eyes with tiger flecks. Ginevra's eyes were black, the color of those deep foreboding lakes that policemen trawl for dead bodies in the movies. Ginevra's vision clouded as minuscule mascara flecks irritated her pupils. Again, she wrangled herself across the parquet and caressed the forehead--still warm. She strangled a sob. She'd been so certain it would work, her meticulous plan to give Rory--and the rest of them--the perfect trip. Ambitious, fiercely protective Rory. An old soul. Occasionally too determined and bighearted for her own good. Ginevra's latest, and finest, main character. All Ginevra had wanted to do was save Rory. To make decades of wrongs, right. And so Ginevra had plotted and planned, but somewhere along the way, her eagerness, her confidence, her old but raw pain had bested her. Run roughshod over her clarity of mind. Ginevra had forgotten the cardinal rule: Often characters have a mind of their own. And characters are prone to hiding secrets--from the author and from each other. Secrets that take pages to untangle. The majority of the book to tease out until you yelp a little surprise. Oh! Sometimes it doesn't matter that you've lined it up perfectly, all the acts, all the beats--the twisty, perfect lead-up to that critical character's final zig. Because instead of zigging, they zag. Excerpted from The Main Character: A Novel by Jaclyn Goldis All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

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