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Helpless

by Jessica Knoll

A past that won’t stay settled

Regular price $22.67 USD
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Awards & Recognition

  • Bestseller

    USA TODAY bestseller

    The supplied metadata describes Helpless as a USA TODAY bestseller.

  • Editorial selection

    Oprah Daily Best Book of Summer

    Named a Best Book of Summer by Oprah Daily.

  • Author recognition

    New York Times bestselling author

    The metadata identifies Jessica Knoll as a New York Times bestselling author.

AlbakiReads Editorial

A past that won’t stay settled

Faye Heron’s polished life as a Hollywood producer is unsettled when a funeral brings her back to campus and into the orbit of Henry Spalding, her former film professor’s student and her first love. After Henry abducts her, the confinement becomes the setting for a reckoning with their relationship and with the version of the past Faye has built her writing around. Questions about the professor’s death connect the present danger to events years earlier, while the book’s central tension turns on memory, trust, and the possibility that Faye’s account of her own history is incomplete.

Good fit for readers who enjoy

  • Readers seeking psychological suspense built around an abduction and a years-old mystery.
  • Readers interested in stories about obsessive former relationships and uncertain memories.
  • Readers who enjoy suspense set against a Hollywood career and creative work.

Themes

Memory and self-narrativeObsession and controlSecrets from the pastTrust and uncertainty

Based on publisher information and book metadata.

Book overview

A USA TODAY BESTSELLER!

A BEST BOOK OF SUMMER FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES, OPRAH DAILY, AND TOWN AND COUNTRY

From the New York Times bestselling author of Luckiest Girl Alive and Bright Young Women comes a "smart thriller" (The New York Times) full of shameless sex and page-turning twists about a woman kidnapped by the man who once knew her best--and the devastating secret that could destroy them both.

Faye Heron has an enviable life. Her work on an acclaimed television show built professional bridges and burned personal ones. Now, she's one half of a power-producing duo with her Hollywood husband. Beautiful, rich, and successful, Faye has spent years believing her version of the past and using it as material for her writing.

Then, her former film professor passes away, and the funeral brings her back to her college campus and face to face with the man she she barely escaped.

Henry Spalding was Faye's first love, whose presence still looms large in her mind. Their connection was obsessive, intoxicating, impossible to replicate. Because Henry is one of a kind.

The kind who delivers a hypnotic apology for the way things ended. The kind who suggests they go back to the hotel for a drink. The kind who drugs and kidnaps her.

When Faye wakes up bound and imprisoned in Henry's isolated mountain cabin, she's forced to confront a terrifying possibility: this may not be about revenge. As the days pass, Faye begins to chip away at the truth. What was the real cause of her professor's death? And could it have something to do with why Henry has brought her here? Most jarring of all--what really happened all those years ago with Henry? Is it possible her version of the past cannot be trusted?

With every revelation, the walls close in. As Faye and Henry are pulled back into the toxic, magnetic bond that nearly destroyed them once before, a sprawling, years-old mystery begins to take shape, rewriting history as Faye remembers it and forcing her to reckon with her most complicated and thrilling desires.
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