The captivating psychological thriller Dean Koontz calls “pure delight, a swift yet psychologically complex read.”It’s an author’s job to create a new world in the pages of a book. But when lines start to blur and reality begins to fade, getting lost in a story can be dangerous—especially if you can’t find your way back…A psychological mystery that will leave you questioning what’s real, After … After She Wrote Him is:Perfect for fans of Greer Hendricks and Jane HarperFor readers of psychological mysteries and literary fictionMadeleine d’Leon doesn’t know where Edward came from. He is simply a character in her next book. But as she writes, he becomes all she can think about. His charm, his dark hair, his pen scratching out his latest literary novel…Edward McGinnity can’t get Madeleine out of his mind—softly smiling, infectiously enthusiastic, and perfectly damaged. She will be the ideal heroine for his next book.But who is the author and who is the creation? And as the lines start to blur, who is affected when a killer finally takes flesh?After She Wrote Him is a piece of meta-fiction with a wildly inventive twist on the murder mystery that takes readers on a journey filled with passion, obsession, and the emptiness left behind when the real world starts to fall away.(Previously published as Crossing the Lines)
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What an extraordinarily written book! This author is new to me and reading a new author is like opening a present at Christmas. You don’t know what you are getting until you open the package! Well this package is a wonderful surprise. I will definitely be getting more books from this author. Thank you for writing such a great book!
“After She Wrote Him” Sulari Gentill is a story of a writer, a mystery writer, and the characters who come to life on the pages of her book. Madeleine d’Leon was a lawyer. She had always wanted to be a writer, and so she wrote a book, this book. In fact, this is a book within a book, the one she is writing and the one about her writing the book, and readers experience both. The author and the characters she writes weave in and out blurring the distinction between a book of fiction and the fiction in a book. Characters talk to each other and talk about each other. They discuss characters that should be introduced by the writer, and then those characters suddenly appear in written scenes. Readers follow one person who is created by another person and interact with both, wondering who is guiding and who is following.
Gentill puts readers right into the process of writing and creating a mystery, choosing victims, planting clues, and uncovering perpetrators. The silent walls between reader, writer, and characters crash down. This is a new type of narrator, not unreliable, but in fact doing exactly what is written; it is the writer who is unreliable. I received a review copy of “After She Wrote Him” from Sulari Gentill and Poisoned Pen Press. It does require some attention to detail to remember the role of each character, but it was stimulating, unpredictable, and unique.
Sulari Gentill takes a new refreshing approach to this story. The way she writes about the ‘main characters’ is very unique and satisfying to the reader. Can these two people actually meet in real life? They sound perfect for one another…on paper, but what about in the real world? I enjoyed this story very much. I would like to thank NetGalley for a copy of this book that I voluntarily reviewed.
This is going to be one of those books that I loved but that I have a hard time writing about, largely because so much of the magic I found in this one has to do with the way I feel personally about writers and writing. That’s a personal experience, and not one that necessarily lends itself well to explanation or explication. But trust me when I say that this is a marvelous book and one of my favorite finds this year!
I love meta-fiction and books that explore the relationship between author/character or art/artist. Anthony Horowitz and Gordon McAlpine are two of my very favorite authors who are masters at this type of story telling. And now I can say without a doubt that Sulari Gentill has entered their pantheon…
This is a book about an author writing a book. But who is the author and who is the book? Gentill has done a brilliant job exploring themes of identity, ownership, madness, creativity, and self. The opening back-and-forth in story lines is engaging. But when things start to overlap, that’s when the magic really happens. The story is engaging and both well-written and well-crafted. I loved the way the perspective shifts flowed seamlessly between Madeleine and Edward; it reinforced the interrelationship between the two and really added depth to the narrative.
I imagine there are some who won’t like the ending. I found it spot-on perfect for the story, a reinforcement of the themes teased out through the narrative. I thoroughly enjoyed every aspect of this one, and am definitely going to look for more from Gentill!
Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for my review copy. The book releases in the U.S. on April 7, 2020.