Audiobook4 hours
The Shades: A Novel
Written by Evgenia Citkowitz
Narrated by Sarah Zimmerman
Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
3.5/5
()
About this audiobook
A year has passed since Catherine and Michael Hall lost their teenage daughter in a car accident, leaving them and their sixteen-year-old son, Rowan, reeling in the aftermath of the tragedy. After Rowan escapes to boarding school, Catherine withdraws from her life as a successful London gallerist to Hamdean, an apartment in a former manor, where she and Michael had hoped to spend their retirement. When Catherine meets a beguiling young woman who appears at the house claiming to have once lived there, she looks to her for meaningful connection. But as their relationship shifts to one of forbidding uncertainty, the mysteries of the past collide with the truth of the present.
With the psychological tension of Patricia Highsmith and the emotional complexity of Ian McEwan, The Shades raises questions about the inescapability of human nature and speaks to our deepest anxieties: the safety of those we love and the sanctuary of home.
With the psychological tension of Patricia Highsmith and the emotional complexity of Ian McEwan, The Shades raises questions about the inescapability of human nature and speaks to our deepest anxieties: the safety of those we love and the sanctuary of home.
Related to The Shades
Related audiobooks
How to Set Yourself on Fire Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Not That Kind of Place Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsKnots: Stories Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5In the Blink of an Eye: A Novel Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRutting Season: Stories Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Drop City Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Friendship Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5America Was Hard to Find: A Novel Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Dear Fang, With Love Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Some Go Home Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWait, Blink Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Butcher's Hook Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Hieroglyphics Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Gilded Life of Matilda Duplaine Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Sonora Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5St. Ivo Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Euphoria Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Bear Woman Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsOne Night, New York Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mother of All Pigs Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Last Lovers Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Harmless Like You: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5We Agreed to Meet Just Here Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Night. Sleep. Death. The Stars.: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Atlas of Reds and Blues: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How to Be Safe: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ethan Frome Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThrough Black Spruce Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Uninnocent: Notes on Violence and Mercy Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Literary Fiction For You
Remarkably Bright Creatures: A Novel Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Song of Achilles: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Alchemist Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Blood Meridian: Or the Evening Redness in the West Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Demon Copperhead: A Novel Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5It Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Yellowface: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Bell Jar Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Road Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The House in the Cerulean Sea Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes: A Hunger Games Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Measure: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Tom Lake: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Hate U Give Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Name of the Wind Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Tree Grows in Brooklyn Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Picture of Dorian Gray: Classic Tales Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5CATCH-22 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Kindred Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Parable of the Sower Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Stardust Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Year of Magical Thinking Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Ocean at the End of the Lane: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Overstory Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Nothing to See Here Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Future Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Beneath a Scarlet Sky: A Novel Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Dutch House: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hang the Moon: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for The Shades
Rating: 3.5454545454545454 out of 5 stars
3.5/5
11 ratings3 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This is a spare novel about the impact of the loss of a child on the rest of the family. The sense of dread builds as the book progresses. You know something will happen, but what?
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Evgenia Citkowitz explores the devastating effects of loss in her first full-length novel The Shades. Catherine is a gallery owner who is still reeling from the loss of her daughter in an accident over a year ago. She wanders around the family’s country home-unable to return to work, barely coping with daily activities, and hiding from neighbors and friends. Her husband is spending increasingly more time at their London address, working and trying to reconcile his own beliefs about his relationship with Catherine before it became so distant and disconnected. Their teenage son, Rowan, has reacted to the death of his sister by running away to a private school. He becomes increasingly involved with environmental activism and seeks concrete ways to wrest back control of his life. The short novel alternates between these three characters, highlighting their separation and alienation from the world and each other. When a strange waif-like girl arrives at her doorstep, claiming to be the daughter of the previous owners, Catherine immediately sees her as a surrogate for her own lost child. Catherine become increasingly obsessed with taking this stranger under her wing, but Keira may not be who she claims to be. Catherine may not be able to recover from another loss and she is casting about for a sense of purpose as depression threatens to overwhelm her. In The Shades, Citkowitz provides a dense tale filled with emotion and a sense of lingering despair as this small family verges on collapse under the weight of their own grief.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Thanks to the publisher, W W. Norton & Company, for an ARC in exchange for my honest review.Evgenia Citkowitz is a new author for me. This novel is advertised as a mystery but, to me, it was not very suspenseful. It's the story of a family coping with the untimely death of their daughter and sister, Rachel. It studies each of the parents and brother as they cope with their grief in different ways. Not only is the loss of a young person's life a tragedy, but the family left behind is profoundly affected. There are not a lot of characters in this novel which I liked. But I felt the story line moved slowly including some details that didn't relate. The ending was confusing but by that time, I just wanted the family members to come together and realize that they still had each other.Even though the author did a good job of getting inside the grieving minds of the three main characters, this novel probably won't be a memorable one for me.