Under the scorching French sun, a tense homecoming unearths a long-buried family secret in this “sultry, gorgeously written” thriller of a mother’’s greatest fear brought to life (Lucy Foley, New York Times bestselling author of The Hunting Party and The Guest List). Elodie was beautiful. Elodie was smart. Elodie was manipulative. Elodie is dead. When Sylvie Durand receives a letter … Elodie is dead.
When Sylvie Durand receives a letter calling her back to her crumbling family home in the South of France, she knows she has to go. In the middle of a sweltering 1990’’s summer marked by unusual fires across the countryside, she returns to La Reverie with her youngest daughter Emma in tow, ignoring the deep sense of dread she feels for this place she’’s long tried to forget.
As memories of the events that shattered their family a decade earlier threaten to come to the surface, Sylvie struggles to shield Emma from the truth of what really happened all those years ago. In every corner of the house, Sylvie can’‘t escape the specter of Elodie, her first child. Elodie, born amid the ‘’68 Paris riots with one blue eye and one brown, and mysteriously dead by fourteen. Elodie, who reminded the small village of one those Manson girls. Elodie who knew exactly how to get what she wanted. As the fires creep towards the villa, it’’s clear to Sylvie that something isn’‘t quite right at La Reverie . . . And there is a much greater threat closer to home.
Rich in unforgettable characters, The Heatwave alternates between the past and present, grappling with what it means to love and fear a child in equal measure. With the lush landscape and nostalgia of a heady vacation read, Kate Riordan has woven a gripping page-turner with gorgeous prose that turns the idea of a summer novel on its head.
really happened all those years ago. In every corner of the house, Sylvie can’‘t escape the specter of Elodie, her first child. Elodie, born amid the ‘’68 Paris riots with one blue eye and one brown, and mysteriously dead by fourteen. Elodie, who reminded the small village of one those Manson girls. Elodie who knew exactly how to get what she wanted. As the fires creep towards the villa, it’’s clear to Sylvie that something isn’‘t quite right at La Reverie . . . And there is a much greater threat closer to home.
Rich in unforgettable characters, The Heatwave alternates between the past and present, grappling with what it means to love and fear a child in equal measure. With the lush landscape and nostalgia of a heady vacation read, Kate Riordan has woven a gripping page-turner with gorgeous prose that turns the idea of a summer novel on its head.
really happened all those years ago. In every corner of the house, Sylvie can’‘t escape the specter of Elodie, her first child. Elodie, born amid the ‘’68 Paris riots with one blue eye and one brown, and mysteriously dead by fourteen. Elodie, who reminded the small village of one those Manson girls. Elodie who knew exactly how to get what she wanted. As the fires creep towards the villa, it’’s clear to Sylvie that something isn’‘t quite right at La Reverie . . . And there is a much greater threat closer to home.
Rich in unforgettable characters, The Heatwave alternates between the past and present, grappling with what it means to love and fear a child in equal measure. With the lush landscape and nostalgia of a heady vacation read, Kate Riordan has woven a gripping page-turner with gorgeous prose that turns the idea of a summer novel on its head.
really happened all those years ago. In every corner of the house, Sylvie can’‘t escape the specter of Elodie, her first child. Elodie, born amid the ‘’68 Paris riots with one blue eye and one brown, and mysteriously dead by fourteen. Elodie, who reminded the small village of one those Manson girls. Elodie who knew exactly how to get what she wanted. As the fires creep towards the villa, it’’s clear to Sylvie that something isn’‘t quite right at La Reverie . . . And there is a much greater threat closer to home.
Rich in unforgettable characters, The Heatwave alternates between the past and present, grappling with what it means to love and fear a child in equal measure. With the lush landscape and nostalgia of a heady vacation read, Kate Riordan has woven a gripping page-turner with gorgeous prose that turns the idea of a summer novel on its head.
an’‘t escape the specter of Elodie, her first child. Elodie, born amid the ‘’68 Paris riots with one blue eye and one brown, and mysteriously dead by fourteen. Elodie, who reminded the small village of one those Manson girls. Elodie who knew exactly how to get what she wanted. As the fires creep towards the villa, it’’s clear to Sylvie that something isn’‘t quite right at La Reverie . . . And there is a much greater threat closer to home.
Rich in unforgettable characters, The Heatwave alternates between the past and present, grappling with what it means to love and fear a child in equal measure. With the lush landscape and nostalgia of a heady vacation read, Kate Riordan has woven a gripping page-turner with gorgeous prose that turns the idea of a summer novel on its head.
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This was a great thriller! It starts with Sylvie receiving a letter asking her to come to her family’s home in France. Sylvie and her daughter Emma return home. Sylvie must confront all the bad memories associated with the house, like the death of her first born daughter Elodie. The story is told in the past and the present which I loved. The descriptions in the book make you feel you are there in the old house right beside the characters. This was a fast read that I enjoyed very much! I received a gifted copy from Grand Central Publishing.
This family based psychological thriller will keep you reading long into the night. Perfect for fans of Debra Webb and Alyssa Cole.
Kate Riordan takes the summer thriller to the next level with The Heatwave. Mesmeric writing, beguiling characters and a plot that will make your blood run cold.
I couldn’t stop reading this book. The writing is rich and multi-layered, but it’s the subtlety of the characterizations that hook you and won’t let you go. A taut and stunning novel!
Tense and deliciously atmospheric, it unravels a mother-daughter relationship with a growing sense of menace. A gripping and thoroughly enjoyable read.
A sultry, gorgeously written and hugely atmospheric thriller with a dark, compelling mystery at its heart.
Outstanding. An absolute page-turner.
Sultry, atmospheric and unsettling — a book to lose yourself in this summer.
A story that draws you in instantly and really doesn’t loosen its grip, right up until the last little twist on the final page.
Gripping, unnerving, and chillingly suspenseful!
The Heatwave is an intense, slow-burning thriller that takes you into the life of Sylvie Durand, a middle-aged, single mum who after a sudden fire at the family estate, La Reverie, in the south of France must finally return home to confront all the memories, secrets, and tragedies that are buried there.
The prose is tight and edgy. The characters are secretive, consumed, and troubled. And the plot, told through an unreliable narrator and using a past/present, back-and-forth style builds and unravels subtly into a tension-filled tale full of unexpected twists, suspicious personalities, familial drama, deception, guilt, violence, manipulation, and the complex, sometimes toxic relationships that can occur between family members.
Overall, The Heatwave is an engrossing, cunning, sinister novel by Riordan that keeps you enthralled from the very first page and is a menacing, highly entertaining, eerily atmospheric read.
Heatwave by Kate Riordan a five-star read that has the mixings of a summer blockbuster. This will have you gripped on every page, and have you wondering what would I do? It’s a powerful read that will keep you on your toes, and one I don’t want to write much else about other than pick this up and don’t miss a fantastic read as I know my words wont do it justice.