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    What Remains of Me: A Novel
    What Remains of Me: A Novel
    What Remains of Me: A Novel
    Audiobook12 hours

    What Remains of Me: A Novel

    Written by Alison Gaylin

    Narrated by Ann Marie Lee

    3.5/5

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    About this audiobook

    The USA Today bestselling author of the Brenna Spector series returns with her most ambitious book to date, a spellbinding novel of psychological suspense, set in the glamorous, wealthy world of Hollywood—a darkly imaginative and atmospheric tale of revenge and betrayal, presumed guilt and innocence lost, dirty secrets and family ties reminiscent of the bestsellers of Laura Lippman, Gillian Flynn, and Harlan Coben.

    Nobody’s perfect. Everybody’s got a drawer somewhere with something hidden in it.

    On June 28, 1980—the hottest night of the year—Kelly Michelle Lund shoots and kills Oscar-nominated director John McFadden at a party in his home. . . . And instantly becomes a media sensation, her chilling smile fodder for national nightmares. For years, speculation swirls over the enigmatic seventeen-year-old’s motives, information she’s refused to share. Convicted of the murder, she loses her youth and her freedom—but keeps her secrets to herself.

    Thirty years later—and five years after her release from prison—the past has come back to haunt Kelly. Her father-in-law, movie legend Sterling Marshall, is found in a pool of blood in his home in the Hollywood Hills—dead from a shot to the head, just like his old friend John McFadden.

    Once again, Kelly is suspected of the high profile murder. But this time, she’s got some unexpected allies who believe she’s innocent—of both killings—and want to help her clear her name. But is she?

    Written with masterful precision and control, What Remains of Me brilliantly moves forward and back in time, playing out the murders side by side—interweaving subtle connections and peeling away layers of events to reveal the shocking truth.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperAudio
    Release dateFeb 23, 2016
    ISBN9780062444905
    Author

    Alison Gaylin

    Alison Gaylin is the author of the Edgar-nominated thriller Hide Your Eyes and its sequel You Kill Me, the stand-alones The Collective and Edgar-nominated What Remains of Me, and the Brenna Spector series: And She Was (winner of the Shamus Award), Into the Dark, and the Edgar-nominated Stay With Me. A graduate of Northwestern University and Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism, she lives with her husband and daughter in Woodstock, New York.

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    Reviews for What Remains of Me

    3.5/5

    71 ratings13 reviews

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    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 5/5
      Great narrator. Really good story too. Kept me listening throughout.
    • 4/5
      Pretty good book although many of the twists were predictable up until the last 8 chapters or so.
    • 4/5
      I thought that this book was really well done. I have had this book for years but somehow never got around to reading it until now. I thought that story was really interesting and I couldn’t wait to see how things would work out. I am so glad that I finally decided to make this book a priority.There are really two main mysteries in this book. As a teenager, Kelly Lund shot and killed a famous Hollywood director. She went to jail for twenty-five years and has been free for the past five years when her father-in-law is found dead. Kelly is immediately a suspect in the new murder but there are questions about what really happened when she was a teen. It was really interesting to go back and see what happened in the past and its impact on everyone connected to the events.I think that the two timelines worked really well to tell this story. There were plenty of twists and turns that kept me guessing throughout the book. I wanted to know all of the secrets that this group of characters were keeping from each other and I couldn’t wait to find out what really happened to both of the men that were murdered. There were a lot of layers to the story and smaller questions to be answered that kept things really interesting.I believe that this was the first time that I have listened to Ann Marie Lee’s narration work. It did take me just a bit to adjust to her reading but I ended up really enjoying her narration. I thought that she brought a lot to the story and handled the voices of the different characters very well. I feel like her narration added to my overall enjoyment of this story and wouldn’t hesitate to listen to her work again in the future.I would recommend this book to others. I found this to be a rather complex mystery that captured my attention early on and never let go. I definitely plan to read more of Alison Gaylin’s work in the future.I received a digital review copy of this book from William Morrow via Edelweiss and borrowed a copy of the audiobook from my local library.
    • 4/5
      a dive into the dark side of Hollywood and the early 80s. A ripping good read.
    • 4/5
      A tense thriller with many twists set in the glitzy world of movies. Told between 2010 and 30 years earlier in 1980, it is the story of accused murderer Kelly Lund, and the people that shaped her life.
    • 3/5
      This book is set in Hollywood.Poor girl Kelly Lund gets in with the Rich kids.She kills a Movie director does 30 years for it.She is out now her Father in law is then murdered, she is the main suspect for this but it turns out it was her Mother in law who pulled the trigger this time.Also her Father in law was actually her Father, bit confusing. I liked some of this book.
    • 4/5
      This is a powerfully suspenseful book. I thought it was going to be a predictable mystery but it wasn’t. The moral of the story for me is the life of the rich and famous is not so wonderful.
    • 5/5
      This is one of my favorite reads of the year so far.In What Remains of Me, Gaylin spins an amazingly tangled tale about a murder from the past and a murder from the present colliding, sending secrets spiraling out from the wreckage.Hollywood is a place of secrets and lies, and Kelly Lund is caught up in the middle of it all. When she was a teenager, she was convicted of murdering a famous movie director. Now out of prison, her father-in-law is found dead under similar circumstances, and Kelly finds herself a suspect once again. Gaylin is a brilliant writer. What I have to mention first and foremost is how expertly she delivers her twists. I spent the last third of the book literally gasping out loud, unable to stop turning pages because I had to know what would happen next. Just when I would think I had things figured out, Gaylin would completely surprise me once again.I also really loved the technique of weaving flashbacks from the time of the original murder with scenes from the present day. This did a lot for character development, as well as setting up future plot points and creating a lot of suspense.Essentially, I can't say enough about how much I loved this book. It's absolutely one of the ones I'm going to go to when people ask for a recommended read that they haven't heard of yet.
    • 4/5
      Kelly Lund is jailed in 1980 for killing a hollywood film director. Thirty years later she is free. But there is another high profile killing of someone connected to her and, of course, she is a suspect. But did she do it?This is the story of Kelly, her family life, her troubles and the effect they have on her life. The narrative chops and changes between the past and present. It paints a picture of Kelly's childhood, the difficult times at school, coping with the death of her sister and a troubled home life with separated parents - seeing Kelly moving from her mother's home to her fathers. In the present, Kelly is married, living a fairly remote existence away from LA. The years in jail have caused further separation from family and friends and she seems to lead a lonely life.This is the sort of book with loads of twists and turns. Some of them you can sort of predict and you're kept wondering if you're right until it's revealed in the plot. And others are completely unexpected. I love that! It is well written and not packed so full of characters that it is difficult to keep track. The alternating past and present picks up different threads relating to each character - I found the storyline of Kelly's mum particularly fascinating.Thank you to NetGalley for a free copy in exchange for an honest review.
    • 4/5
      This reminds me a bit of Dear Daughter in the fact that it deals with a young woman who is part of the celebrity world and who has been sentenced to prison for a murder. It also includes a few sections from news media as well as the more traditional story format. There it parts company. Where the main character in DD is completely revolting and unsympathetic, Kelly is the opposite. She has paid the price of her crime and through the story told in the present and the flashes to the past, we come to understand her and how she came to be at the movie after party with a gun. Of course we doubt what really happened then and through the present narrative, form enough sympathy for Kelly that we want the real killer caught. Of course there has to be a real killer. She’s shielding someone, surely. Right? Right?
    • 4/5
      Convicted killer Kelly Lund is trying to live a quiet life after release from prison. She’s served 25 years for shooting Hollywood director John McFadden in an apparent drug-induced teenage rage. Now the nightmare is starting all over again. Fifties movie idol, Sterling Marshall (McFadden’s good friend and now Kelly’s father-in-law), has been found shot with the same weapon and in the same fashion – and Kelly is yet again a suspect in the murder inquiry. Only this time, she has some unlikely allies convinced of her innocence. “What Remains of Me” is a psychological thriller, jumping 30 years between the events leading up to the two murders. Author Alison Gaylin is perhaps better known as the author of the Brenna Spector series. Her skills in suspense and dialogue shines through in this stand alone effort. Gaylin’s plot slowly gives up secret upon secret leading up to the exciting conclusion. Some of the twists were predictable, but a few came as a total surprise. Some people might be put off by the sudden shifts in time. Most will be appreciate the high-flying Hollywood setting and fast paced suspense. (4 stars) I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
    • 4/5
      This book was a pleasant surprise. I didn't think I would really like it because it was set in Hollywood but that probably was what made this so enjoyable. It starts out on the hottest night of the year, 1980, when Kelly Lund, 17, shot and killed a famous director, John McFadden at a party. An unfortunate picture of her dead eye smile makes her fodder for the tabloids for years. 30 years later, five years after she's released from prison, her father-in-law, is found shot and it looks like the same killer did it. The story goes back and forth between 1980 and 2010 giving the background for what happened to these two men. Enjoyable.
    • 4/5
      At 16 Kelly Michelle Lund goes to prison for killing a well know movie director. She stays staunch in her denials that she killed him but an unfortunate photo kills any chance of people believing her. This book bounces back and forth from June of 1980 when the first murder happened to 2010 when Kelly is out of jail and trying to rebuild a life. Because of this I almost quit reading the book, the abrupt time shifts with most of the same people and all of the same names make it hard for me to keep track of the storyline. There are plenty of twists and turns to keep the reader interested and Kelly is a very different "heroine". Family ties, friendship, and lives of deep lies all get tangled together in this fascinating story.