The Blue Hour: A Novel

by Paula Hawkins

Overview

Notes From Your Bookseller

Eerie, lush and dark — The Blue Hour is a psychological thriller about hidden truths and the dangers that come with uncovering them. This is Paula Hawkins at her finest.

A GOOD MORNING AMERICA BOOK CLUB PICK

AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

"A taut, slow-burning thriller." -Boston Globe

"Truly exceptional." – Liz Moore, New York Times bestselling author of The God of the Woods

Welcome to Eris: an island with only one house, one inhabitant, one way out. Unreachable from the Scottish mainland for twelve hours each day.

Once home to Vanessa: A famous artist whose notoriously unfaithful husband disappeared twenty years ago.

Now home to Grace: A solitary creature of the tides, content in her own isolation.

But when a shocking discovery is made in an art gallery far away in London, a visitor comes calling.

And the secrets of Eris threaten to emerge....

A masterful novel that is as page-turning as it is unsettling, The Blue Hour recalls the sophisticated suspense of Shirley Jackson and Patricia Highsmith and cements Hawkins’s place among the very best of our most nuanced and stylish storytellers.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780063396524
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	10/29/2024
Pages:	320
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

Paula Hawkins is a novelist and former journalist. Born and brought up in Zimbabwe, she now splits her time between London and Edinburgh.

Editorial Reviews

A potent brew of head-spinning deceptions, manipulations, and misdirections, The Blue Hour is a taut, slow-burning thriller that offers real-life apprehensions quietly tucked in amid all of its cunning malevolence.” — Boston Globe

"You won’t want to miss Hawkins at her best: weaving intricate storylines, masterfully jumping back and forth in time, and constructing a haunting mood that hangs over the book like a thick ocean fog." — Oprah Daily

"Intricately constructed...constantly surprising...dark and compelling." — Wall Street Journal

"Paula Hawkins has done it again...this taut, chilling read is just right for a dark November day." — Real Simple

“A tight story…that culminates in a shocking ending… there are few authors writing today who drip out [secrets], page by excruciating page, like Hawkins.” — Associated Press

"The best Paula Hawkins yet - by a tense and haunting mile." — Lee Child

"The Blue Hour is an atmospheric, stylish puzzle box of a thriller with a deliciously inventive premise. I love a locked-room mystery—or, in this case, a locked-island mystery—and Paula Hawkins has delivered a truly exceptional one."  — Liz Moore, New York Times bestselling author of The God of the Woods

"An atmospheric and marvelously twisty novel— Paula Hawkins returns with an examination of legacy, and the mountains we'll move to feel like we belong. THE BLUE HOUR builds a labyrinth of surprises, which deliver through to the very last page." — Danya Kukafka, author of Notes on an Execution

"Wow! Paula Hawkins has created another stunning, intensely moody tale of suspense and psychological insight. I read THE BLUE HOUR in one day, utterly mesmerized, but it’s much more than a twisty nail-biter. It’s a masterful exploration of the nature of obsession and a fascinating portrayal of an artist’s creative process and legacy. I loved it." — — Angie Kim, New York Times bestselling author of Happiness Falls and Miracle Creek

"A superb, powerful read." — Independent (London)

"I LOVED this art-world-set thriller with its stately-home Saltburn vibe....Hawkins weaves a skillful tale about class and privilege and keeps up the tension until the very end." — Daily Mail (London)

"A masterpiece! Gorgeous and chilling." — Shari Lapena, bestselling author of The Couple Next Door

“Reminiscent of du Maurier: art, islands, missing spouses ... A compelling piece of work, hard to put down.”  — Mick Herron, bestselling author of the Slough House series

"Hawkins keeps her cast tight, her wild setting ominous, and her plot moving fast...propulsive." — Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

"The author of The Girl on the Train combines a murder mystery with an exploration of an artist’s troubled inner life in this elegiac novel." — Sunday Times (London)

"This is a fine, insidious thriller, an elegantly calibrated story of sexual jealousy and artistic passion" — Mail on Sunday

“The stormy Atlantic Ocean inspires a troubled artist and swallows up a few sins in a fine new novel by Paula Hawkins, who’s best known for her debut, The Girl on the Train. Three books later, she’s elevated her game with The Blue Hour, a disturbing, elegant, and psychologically probing inquiry into the final years of a troubled artist and the mess she left behind.” —  Lisa Henricksson, Airmail

"An unsettling yet fascinating psychological thriller ... The Blue Hour connects themes of love, friendship, obsession, and the pitfalls of hero worship into a stirring and intoxicating read that will keep you guessing until the last words." — San Francisco Book Review

"An intelligent, propulsive thriller examining art, ambition, legacy and the dynamics of power. Undoubtedly Hawkins’s best novel yet." — The Guardian

"Narrator Gemma Whelan masterfully brings to life this dark, atmospheric mystery. Her performance captures Hawkins's beautifully written descriptions of settings, artworks, and characters."  — AudioFile Magazine

From the Publisher

★ 2024-09-14
The discovery that a revered artist’s sculpture contains a human bone sets off scandal and violence.

Art historian James Becker has what seems like a sweet deal. He’s the curator of the collection of the Fairburn Foundation, housed at a stately home owned by the Lennox family: Sebastian, Becker’s best friend, and his bitter mother, Lady Emmeline. Becker’s wife, Helena, was Sebastian’s fiancee first, but they’re all very civilized about it and happily awaiting the birth of her baby. The centerpiece of the Fairburn collection is works by the late Vanessa Chapman, an artist about whom Becker wrote his thesis, and with whom he is somewhat obsessed. Partly, it’s because of her great talent, but she was also a glamorous figure, a beauty who, as she became successful, sequestered herself on an isolated Scottish tidal island called Eris. She had a dark side—lots of stormy relationships, plus a philandering mooch of a husband who vanished without a trace a few decades ago. Her reputation, though, has risen after her death—so much so that the Fairburn has loaned some of her works to the Tate Modern. That’s where a forensic anthropologist sees one of her sculptures, made of found objects that include what’s described as an animal bone. The scientist is sure the bone is human, and soon Becker finds himself scrambling to prevent scandal. Vanessa willed her works and papers to the foundation, but some of them are still on Eris, guarded by her longtime friend Grace Haswell. A retired doctor, Grace lived with Vanessa off and on over the years and nursed her through her fatal cancer. It was a surprise when Vanessa left her estate not to Grace but to Douglas Lennox, Emmeline’s husband and Sebastian’s father. Douglas was Vanessa’s gallerist and lover, but the two had a nasty falling-out. Sebastian is so frustrated by Grace’s refusal to turn over all of the bequest that he’s ready to sue her, but Becker believes he can negotiate, so off to the the island he goes. He finds far more treachery and shocking secrets than he expected, past and present alike. Hawkins keeps her cast tight, her wild setting ominous, and her plot moving fast.

This propulsive thriller twists into the dark and bloody underbelly of the world of fine art.

Kirkus Reviews