Summary
Bad Juliet
Recently jilted by his fiancée, Paul Gascoyne takes a job as a tutor to the patients at the Trudeau Sanitarium in upstate New York. There, in the icebound beauty of the Adirondack Mountains, he finds himself drawn to Sarah Ballard, a beautiful but enigmatic young woman, traumatized by her past aboard the ill-fated Lusitania. To rouse her out of her gloom, Paul encourages her to write a memoir.
As Paul reads her words, it gradually becomes clear that Sarah’s memories are a tangle of truth and fiction that he can’t begin to unravel. And yet he cannot overcome his attraction to her. When a terrible relapse leaves her worried that she has little time left, Sarah begs Paul to be the one person in the world who will truly know her.
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Reviews
"Nothing prepares you for this glorious read.... A novel of great worth, brilliance, and originality." — 49th Shelf
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"Captivating and beautifully written, this is an intriguing tale with the taut pace of a thriller." — Toronto Star
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"A tragedy full of surprises. Truly moving."— Literary Review of Canada
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"Bad Juliet will hold you in its grip from its opening pages, combining the pacing and twists of a thriller with compelling characterizations and masterful prose. Giles Blunt captures the world of an early twentieth-century sanitarium with the vividness and nuance of Thomas Mann’s Magic Mountain, all the while confronting us with issues just as pressing today as they were a hundred years ago."​ — Nino Ricci, Governor General's Award-winning author of Lives of the Saints and Sleep
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"Beautifully written and filled with intrigue. A compelling journey...Blunt deftly captures the mystique of a tuberculosis 'healing' town, and all the unavoidable drama that occurs when obsessive love sets itself inside a patient's mind and body."
​- Donna Morrissey, award-winning author of Kit's Law
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