★ 10/28/2013
Bestseller Unger returns to the Hollows, the secluded upstate New York town that served as the setting for Fragile and Darkness, My Old Friend, for this gripping novel of psychological suspense. Ace student Lana Granger, with a new name and appearance, sequesters herself at small Sacred Heart College, where no one knows that her father is on death row for killing her mother. At the urging of a compassionate psychology professor, Lana takes a job with Rachel Kahn babysitting her volatile 11-year-old son, Luke. Mother and son have recently moved to the Hollows, where Luke is enrolled at a school for troubled kids. While Lana is drawn into a bizarre game manipulated by Luke, who has discovered her secrets and threatens to expose her, her best friend, Beck Miller, disappears after the two of them argue. A mystery woman’s revealing diary augments the tense, surprise-laden plot. Agent: Elaine Markson, Markson Thoma Literary Agency. (Jan.)
In the Blood: A Novel
Narrated by Candace Thaxton, Gretchen Mol
Lisa UngerUnabridged — 10 hours, 4 minutes
In the Blood: A Novel
Narrated by Candace Thaxton, Gretchen Mol
Lisa UngerUnabridged — 10 hours, 4 minutes
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Overview
Lana Granger lives a life of lies. She has told so many lies about where she comes from and who she is that the truth is like a cloudy nightmare she can't quite recall. About to graduate from college and with her trust fund almost tapped out, she takes a job babysitting a troubled boy named Luke. Expelled from schools all over the country, the manipulative young Luke is accustomed to controlling the people in his life. But, in Lana, he may have met his match. Or has Lana met hers?
When Lana's closest friend, Beck, mysteriously disappears, Lana resumes her lying ways-to friends, to the police, to herself. The police have a lot of questions for Lana when the story about her whereabouts the night Beck disappeared doesn't jibe with eyewitness accounts. Lana will do anything to hide the truth, but it might not be enough to keep her ominous secrets buried: someone else knows about Lana's lies. And he's dying to tell.
Lisa Unger's writing has been hailed as “sensational” (Publishers Weekly) and “sophisticated” (New York Daily News), with “gripping narrative and evocative, muscular prose” (Associated Press). Masterfully suspenseful, finely crafted, and written with a no-holds-barred raw power, In the Blood is Unger at her best.
Editorial Reviews
The brisk plot churns.
"Reading In the Blood is like grabbing a live wire. . . . A shocking, unputdownable thriller."
"This fast-moving book is a rollercoaster thrill ride, withholding crucial facts and then pounding you with them as the chapters wind down. It’s a quick, adrenaline-filled read with a slam-bang climax. Unger’s skill with words, combined with a pace that never lets up, is guaranteed to keep the pages turning long past the midnight hour."
Unger is a compelling storyteller whose tales rest on human frailty. . . . She makes it impossible to stop reading.
"In the Blood is a psychological thriller that played me—in the best sense—from beginning to surprising end. I guarantee Lisa Unger will pull the rug out from under you more than once, so hold tight."
In The Blood may be [Unger's] best one yet. . . . Keeps the shocks and twists coming at a breakneck pace.
"A fantastic novel full of suspense and intrigue. Massively recommended."
In the Blood is an absolute corker of a thriller that cements Lisa Unger's status as one of the brightest stars in the game.
"Nothing is what it seems as Unger pulls off some beautiful surprises in this intriguing thriller. . . . Masterfully told."
Always scary…Unger neatly distorts our perceptions, so there’s no telling what is what. Well done.
A riveting chess match of twists will keep you guessing—and keep you up at night.
"In the Blood is a riveting new thriller from Lisa Unger. Dark and haunting, with a deadly twist that you won't see coming 'til you're hit between the eyes, this book is a winner."
Praise for In the Blood:
“[A] brisk, crafty and fascinating psychological thriller . . . Offers plenty of good, scary fun — scenes that will make readers jump . . . [and] a reveal that will surely elicit a satisfied gasp from the reader. . . . In the Blood is a complex mosaic as well, one that’s tricky, arresting and meaningful.
"Prepare to be scared. Creepy characters, gripping plot, chilling description — this novel is a perfect weekend read . . . This is simply a great, scary psychological thriller."
Always scary…Unger neatly distorts our perceptions, so there’s no telling what is what. Well done.
"Nothing is what it seems as Unger pulls off some beautiful surprises in this intriguing thriller. . . . Masterfully told."
Perfect pitch, characters we can recognize as versions of ourselves, a plot in which a vague sense of suspense almost instantly appears and then grows with the speed of a waterslide. … Lip-smacking good.
Suspenseful, sensitive, sexy, subtle … The best nail-biter I have read for ages. Highly recommended.
I read Black Out in one hungry gulp and spent the rest of the night trying to calm my jangled nerves. This is a stunning, mind-bending shocker with moments of sheer terror — one of the best thrillers I’ve read this year!
Riveting psychological suspense of the first order. If you haven’t yet experienced Lisa Unger, what are you waiting for?
Unger’s latest keeps the adrenaline pumping with a roller-coaster plot and harrowing psychological suspense. … Well worth the ride.
Deeply plotted and complex and carries an undeniable momentum. Lisa Unger’s enthralling cast of characters pulled me right in and locked me down tight. This is one book that will have you racing to the last page, only to have you wishing the ride wasn’t over.
Stellar... Heartbroken should be on everyone’s summer to-read list. For best results, read it alone on an island on a dark and stormy night.
Heartbroken has all the makings of a high-wire thriller. But it's the twisted psyches of its main characters that really unsettle.
Readers will … savor the pleasure of being guided by Unger’s sure hand along a deliciously twisted narrative path. Another scary winner from an accomplished pro.”
“In the Blood is an absolute corker of a thriller that cements Lisa Unger's status as one of the brightest stars in the game.”
"In the Blood is a riveting new thriller from Lisa Unger. Dark and haunting, with a deadly twist that you won't see coming 'til you're hit between the eyes, this book is a winner."
“Stellar... Heartbroken should be on everyone’s summer to-read list. For best results, read it alone on an island on a dark and stormy night.”
“Heartbroken has all the makings of a high-wire thriller. But it's the twisted psyches of its main characters that really unsettle.”
“Deeply plotted and complex and carries an undeniable momentum. Lisa Unger’s enthralling cast of characters pulled me right in and locked me down tight. This is one book that will have you racing to the last page, only to have you wishing the ride wasn’t over.”
“Lisa Unger is one of my favorite authors. She gets better and better with each book.”
“A nail-biting, nuanced whodunit."
“Riveting psychological suspense of the first order. If you haven’t yet experienced Lisa Unger, what are you waiting for?”
“I read Black Out in one hungry gulp and spent the rest of the night trying to calm my jangled nerves. This is a stunning, mind-bending shocker with moments of sheer terror — one of the best thrillers I’ve read this year!
The Hollows is once again a poor choice for someone trying to keep a secret in this latest thriller from best-selling author Unger (Heartbroken, 2012, etc.). This time, it's Sacred Heart College in the upstate New York town that attracts an unhappy outsider seeking refuge. Lana Granger remains haunted by her mother's murder; her father, still on death row for the crime, keeps trying to make contact with her. You might wonder, given Lana's memories of her "appalling" childhood behavior and its role in the violent dysfunction of her parents' marriage, why she would take a job baby sitting for 11-year-old Luke, who attends a nearby school for disturbed kids and is exactly the sort of manipulative, "callous-unemotional" deemed most likely to become a full-blown psychopath by experts like Lana's psychology professor, Langdon Hewes. But Lana feels a strange bond with Luke, and Unger skillfully ratchets up the tension as we begin to realize the boy knows far more about Lana's past than he should, while diary entries interspersed with the main narrative document horrifying behavior by a malicious child we assume is Luke. It soon becomes clear that neither Lana nor the diary entries are what they seem, and it seems frighteningly likely that our troubled protagonist had something to do with her best friend Beck's disappearance. But Unger pulls off a bravura feat of misdirection with Lana's guilty secret and a terrific aha! moment with the revelation of the first of several villains, each fingered with clues carefully planted throughout the text. The book's emotional logic isn't as impeccable as its plotting: We're asked to believe that one dangerously unstable child can grow up and learn to love with the help of therapy and lots of meds, while another with virtually identical issues will always be a monster. Few readers will dwell on this inconsistency as they savor the pleasure of being guided by Unger's sure hand along a deliciously twisted narrative path. Another scary winner from an accomplished pro.
Product Details
| BN ID: | 2940170795963 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Simon & Schuster |
| Publication date: | 01/07/2014 |
| Edition description: | Unabridged |
Read an Excerpt
In The Blood
The winter day was gray and cool, not frigid as it had been. But still it was a very typical January day in upstate New York—barren, chill, flat. I rode my bike around the small, deserted campus, reveling in a quiet that is at its most total right before everyone returns from winter break. The trees were bare, twisted fingers reaching up into the thick, low cloud cover.
I had just returned to school from an unbearable holiday spent with my unbearable aunt and unbearable cousins. (And I know for a fact that they feel exactly the same way about me.) But we did bear up, because that’s what family does, isn’t it? We bear up, together, like it or not.
And so they tolerated the dark-haired, dark-eyed sulking interloper, a wraith in their sunny, golden-haired midst. And I tolerated their terrible happy togetherness. But I knew, and so did they, that I had not quite been folded in. I was a cockroach in the batter of their sweet lives. Too polite to remove me, they ate around me.
I can’t fault them, really. Because they are kind and good, and they took me in against all advice and good sense. And I do try to be polite, and they do, as well. And we are all very good at enduring unhappiness, especially my aunt, who had a great deal of practice early on.
“I have created my life,” she said, in one of the torturous heart-to-hearts she tried to have with me. “And you’re smart enough to do the same.”
She believes that, she really does. She thinks that we are made and not born, that it is the power of choice that forms our lives. With enough positive energy and good feng shui we can overcome almost anything. She’s one of those, the magical thinkers. I think I envy her, even if I can hardly suppress my disdain.
It was that time, with graduation right around the corner, when people wanted to know what you were going to do with your life. Graduate school seemed like a good bet, if for no other reason than it delayed my emergence from the freedom and indulgence of academics into the world of alarm clocks and ambition, and nine-to-five. I couldn’t see myself sitting in a cube somewhere—file cabinets and ringing phones, office birthday cakes and paper cuts. What was a psychology major fit for, if not for more education? The human mind, with all its mystery, bears endless study. Doesn’t it?
But if I hadn’t quite made any decisions on that front, I knew one thing. I needed a job. There was money for everything—for school and housing, for books and extras. My parents, whatever their failings, had made sure of it. There was an account, and I had a lawyer whom I called if I needed something: Skylar Lawrence, the man with the checkbook. He always sounded young on the phone, like a teenage girl. But he was old, ancient even—stooped and bald, draped in expensive suits, sporting gold-rimmed spectacles. He had known my parents for many years, and was the executor of my mother’s estate and manager of my trust. We’d met a couple of times over the years—solemn visits in his office, where he droned on about the status of my mother’s investments, budgets, conditions of the trust. I would sit, nodding sagely, with no idea what he was talking about, too shy to ask many questions.
When I thought of him, which was really only when I needed money, I always envisioned him dwarfed in his huge leather chair, with his stunning view of Manhattan spread about him like a glittering carpet. With a gnarled hand, he’d press a button and money would appear in my checking account. I know: a trust-fund baby, how annoying. Believe it, you wouldn’t want to be me.
During my last conversation with Sky, he suggested that I might find some work since my class schedule was light.
“It would be a good thing for you,” he said. I heard a sharp inhale and slow exhale. He was a smoker; there was an occasional edge to his otherwise youthful voice, sudden bursts of wet, rattling coughs. “To earn something of your own.”
“Okay,” I said. I always said that. It was my stock response when I didn’t know what to say.
“Because you’re an adult now,” he went on, as though I’d put up an argument. “And you need to decide what you are going to make of your life. Earning your own way is part of that.”
“You sound like Aunt Bridgette.”
I heard the hiss of a match lighting, and he drew in another breath sharply. I suppose it wasn’t a stretch to think that this was a scheme they’d hatched together. We choose who we are, she’d said over break, certainly not for the first time. And I could tell that it was important to her that I believe that. We don’t inherit everything.
“Am I out of money or something?” I asked.
“Not yet,” he said. “But as you know, there is a period of diminished support after graduation. You won’t come into your trust until you’re thirty. It was your mother’s wish that you find your calling, and earn your own way.”
“Right,” I said. Of course, I knew this. Both Sky and Bridgette had mentioned it repeatedly. But somehow it had always seemed so very far away, that time when I’d spread my wings and fly on my own. Here I was, on the edge of the academic nest and looking down. I had no idea whether I’d take to the air or crash into a pile of bones.
“So, when you say ‘diminished support,’ you mean . . . ?”
He told me the small yearly sum I would receive, just to help make ends meet and to provide for some extras should I have a low-paying job. “Your mother wanted you to follow your dreams, make a difference. It was her hope that you’d help people. She didn’t want you to choose your career based on how much it paid, but she did want you to do something.”
Of course, no one ever mentioned my father or what he wanted from me.
“I know,” I said. “I will.”
So, that first day back after my winding, solitary bike ride around campus, I walked to the office of student affairs to gaze at the job board. I was weirdly excited. I liked the idea of doing something other than studying, which I had been doing diligently for years. I had been the valedictorian of my high school class. I had a perfect 4.0 average at university. Knowledge and the regurgitation of such in the form of essay and exam came very easily to me. It was everything else that came hard.
Dog walker? Coffeehouse waitress? Bookstore clerk? Librarian assistant? Math tutor? The board was a colorful riot of help-wanted notices, and the possibilities seemed endless. The office assistant was typing behind me. Beside me the phone rang three times, went silent, then started ringing again. I ripped off little paper tags with phone numbers on them. I imagined myself tugged down the street by five dogs with bladders about to burst, or rushing between bistro tables delivering espressos to the undercaffeinated, or quietly filing homeless books, putting them in proper order. Is that what my mom would have wanted for me? Did these jobs qualify as helping people?
“What about this one?”
Startled from my reverie, I saw my psychology professor lingering nearby. He was looking at yet another board brimming with offers. So many people with menial needs, offering positions to those of us desperate for pocket money. It was a sub-economy: easy jobs for overprivileged youth. It seemed like an inside joke. While the larger economy faltered and the working poor labored tirelessly only to make ends meet, some of us drifted on a silly cloud, only asking to receive. Or maybe that’s just me being cynical.
I walked over to stand beside him. He was squinting through his glasses as he pulled a notice off the board and handed it to me.
“‘Single mother looking for afternoon help with her eleven-year-old son,’” I read. “?‘After school through dinner, some overnights.’”
“Should work with your schedule,” he said easily. I had mentioned to him my need for a job before break and he’d promised to be on the lookout for something suitable.
In addition to being my teacher, he was also my school counselor. He’d come to the university shortly after I started. And we’d always walked the line of friendship, which was easier now that I was older.
Langdon Hewes was a study in propriety. We had only met in public places, or with the door to his office wide open. He was too young to be so cautious, but he hinted at having had some kind of negative past experience. And I didn’t pry—because I certainly didn’t want to talk about my past either. He ran a hand through the perpetual tousle of his dark hair, and looked down at me from his towering height.
“Nanny?” I said, skeptical.
“More like babysitter,” he said.
“What’s the difference?”
He shrugged, looked up. He had this way of searching the sky or the ceiling for his answers. He’d tilt his head up and squint into nothingness, as if it were all there in the ether, just waiting to be found.
“Nannies are for little kids,” he said finally. “It’s more of a full-time position. Babysitting is, like, more casual, more as needed.”
He said this with a firm nod that brooked no questioning. Even though he surely knew nothing about nannies or babysitters, I took him at his word. He did have a Ph.D. in child psychology, was the known expert in childhood psychopathy. He’d published several articles in major consumer magazines—including the New York Times Magazine, Psychology Today, Vanity Fair, as well as the ever-important academic journals. Publish or perish; it was no joke at this school. He was currently at work on a book, a collection of case studies that was, he hoped, a blend between a text and something more mainstream. So maybe his opinion on this topic counted for something. At least that’s what I told myself.
I held the ad in my hand. Unlike the other pink and green and yellow sheets, with their fun or fancy typefaces, this was just a plain white paper, with centered Times New Roman text. It offered nothing but its own simplicity. A need in black and white, waiting to be filled.
“You only have three classes this term,” he said. “Mine, criminal psychology, and art. Light load. Never a good idea to have too much time on your hands.”
I wouldn’t call him handsome, but there was something pleasant about his aspect. Even his slouch, his perfectly pressed oxfords and chinos (sometimes jeans), those Merrell cross-training shoes, had a kind of comforting predictability. With Langdon, there were never any surprises. My own inner life was always chaotic, churning. I wondered what it was like to be so even, so measured. His presence never failed to calm me.
“I’ll be your reference.”
“I don’t have any babysitting experience.”
“You’re a psych major,” he said. “There was your internship at Fieldcrest. You were fabulous with the kids.” He said this with a smile, as though it was a little private joke. “You got an A in my class.”
My work at Fieldcrest, a school associated with the university for troubled and emotionally challenged young people, had been intense, to say the least. I was pleased that he thought I’d done a good job there. It was the first time he’d said so out loud, even though the internship evaluation he’d written had been glowing. I shifted forward, closer to him, feeling a little jolt of excitement. There was something about the paper in my hand, about his being there, about the prospect of something new in my life.
I fished my phone from my backpack and dialed the number as we walked into his office. I sat across from his desk and he sat, spun to face his computer, and started typing.
“My name is Lana Granger,” I said when a woman answered. “I’m answering your ad.”
“Oh, great,” she said. She sounded slightly breathless. I heard paper rustling in the background. “Can you come for an interview today?”
Outside the window, it seemed like a ray of sun had broken through the cloud cover and I saw a little bit of blue in the sky for what seemed like the first time in months.
“Uh,” I said stupidly. I hadn’t expected things to progress so quickly. But why not? I guess when you needed a sitter, you really needed a sitter. I looked at my wrist only to realize that I wasn’t wearing a watch. I didn’t even own a watch. And I knew that I had nothing whatsoever to do that day anyway. “Sure.”
“Perfect,” she said. She sounded bright and cheerful; nice, I guess. “After lunch, say twoish?”
We made all the arrangements, exchanged necessary information like her address (just a quick bike ride away from campus), her name (Rachel Kahn, son Luke), my phone number. After I hung up, Langdon turned to look at me. He had an odd expression on his face, something I couldn’t read. But he was like that, a total brain, his mind always working, figuring, developing theories.
“Good work,” he said.
“I didn’t do anything,” I answered. “It was just a phone call.”
“Today is the beginning of your real life,” he said. “This could be your first actual job.”
I couldn’t tell if he was making fun of me in that sweet, gentle way that he had. But I found myself smiling at him. It did feel like kind of a big deal, and my stomach was a little fluttery with happiness. And I was glad I had him to share it with.
“I’ll take you out to lunch to celebrate,” he said. “Let’s go get some pizza.”
I thought about my aunt Bridgette, who is not really so unbearable. Seriously. It’s only that she’s not my mother. Though I know she cares for me, she doesn’t love me. Only a child who has lost a mother knows how yawning and uncrossable is the space between those two things. Just because horrible things have happened to you doesn’t mean you can’t have a happy, normal life, she’d said to me once. I had felt sorry for her, only because I suspected that she might be wrong. I was marked, wasn’t I? Forever? But for whatever silly reason as we left Langdon’s office, I let myself wonder if maybe she was right after all.
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