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The Cliffs: Reese's Book Club: A novel Audiobook
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REESE'S BOOK CLUB PICK • A novel of family, secrets, ghosts, and homecoming set on the seaside cliffs of Maine, by the New York Times best-selling author of Friends and Strangers
“A stunning achievement, and J. Courtney Sullivan’s best book yet. Sullivan weaves a narrative that’s fascinating and thought-provoking. I literally could not put this book down.”
—Ann Napolitano, New York Times best-selling author of Hello Beautiful
On a secluded bluff overlooking the ocean sits a Victorian house, lavender with gingerbread trim, a home that contains a century’s worth of secrets. By the time Jane Flanagan discovers the house as a teenager, it has long been abandoned. The place is an irresistible mystery to Jane. There are still clothes in the closets, marbles rolling across the floors, and dishes in the cupboards, even though no one has set foot there in decades. The house becomes a hideaway for Jane, a place to escape her volatile mother.
Twenty years later, now a Harvard archivist, she returns home to Maine following a terrible mistake that threatens both her career and her marriage. Jane is horrified to find the Victorian is now barely recognizable. The new owner, Genevieve, a summer person from Beacon Hill, has gutted it, transforming the house into a glossy white monstrosity straight out of a shelter magazine. Strangely, Genevieve is convinced that the house is haunted—perhaps the product of something troubling Genevieve herself has done. She hires Jane to research the history of the place and the women who lived there. The story Jane uncovers—of lovers lost at sea, romantic longing, shattering loss, artistic awakening, historical artifacts stolen and sold, and the long shadow of colonialism—is even older than Maine itself.
Enthralling, richly imagined, filled with psychic mediums and charlatans, spirits and past lives, mothers, marriage, and the legacy of alcoholism, this is a deeply moving novel about the land we inhabit, the women who came before us, and the ways in which none of us will ever truly leave this earth.
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"In The Cliffs...teenage Jane finds solace from a tough family life in an abandoned Victorian home on the Maine coast, where she spends hours reading. Two decades later, the house is bought and renovated by Genevieve, a wealthy Bostonian. When ghostly events start to occur, she hires Jane, now a Harvard archivist back in town after a personal crisis, to investigate its history. Jane’s search unearths the stories of the people who’ve inhabited the property, making for a fascinating look at the idea of legacy."
— Real Simple
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The Cliffs is a stunning achievement, and J. Courtney Sullivan’s best book yet. Sullivan weaves a narrative that’s fascinating and thought-provoking. I literally could not put this book down.
— Ann Napolitano, New York Times Bestselling author of Dear Edward and Hello Beautiful -
The Cliffs is a stunning achievement, and J. Courtney Sullivan’s best book yet. Sullivan weaves a narrative that’s fascinating and thought-provoking. I literally could not put this book down.
— Ann Napolitano, New York Times best-selling author of Hello Beautiful -
J. Courtney Sullivan is so skilled at multi-threaded narratives, and this is her most ambitious book yet. Weaving together the stories of women in Maine over centuries, this novel is about maternal loss and trauma, the idea of home, and most affecting, the stories that remain untold.
— Emma Straub, New York Times best-selling author of This Time Tomorrow -
Sullivan...writes with her usual compassion, insight, and sensitivity, creating multidimensional characters about whom, even as they make regrettable mistakes, the reader unwaveringly cares. She also tells a broader story of America’s complicated history, weaving in accounts of Indigenous and Shaker women, and poses powerful questions about how to right the wrongs of the past. Sullivan artfully and astutely engages with difficult topics in this absorbing, affecting novel.
— Kirkus, starred review -
Sullivan...writes with her usual compassion, insight, and sensitivity, creating multidimensional characters about whom, even as they make regrettable mistakes, the reader unwaveringly cares. She also tells a broader story of America’s complicated history, weaving in accounts of Indigenous and Shaker women, and poses powerful questions about how to right the wrongs of the past. Sullivan artfully and astutely engages with difficult topics in this absorbing, affecting novel.
— Kirkus, starred review -
Sullivan thoughtfully explores both Jane’s inner life and the history of the Maine coast, weaving stories of settlers, Shakers, and Indigenous inhabitants of the area with the contemporary plot. Jane is a complex character shaped by her past and trying to figure out her future, and her research leads to an overarching theme: whose story is remembered and told, and why?
— Booklist -
Named a Best Book of the Month by The New York Times, Real Simple, and Kirkus
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Haunting....Archivist Jane Flanagan returns to her coastal Maine hometown to discover that the long-abandoned gothic house she was obsessed with as a teen has a new owner. Genevieve, a wealthy outsider, has given the once-dilapidated dwelling a misbegotten makeover that she believes has awakened something sinister. In this provocative ghost story that questions how we right our wrongs of the past, the two must team up to rid the mysterious 19th-century home of its spirits and overcome their own demons.
— Shannon Carlin, Time -
A dilapidated lavender mansion, perched high on a craggy bluff in Maine, turns out to be more than a home: It’s the key to a century of hopes, misdeeds and family ghosts.
— The New York Times -
Sullivan has found the perfect heroine for her compulsively readable novel. Funny, beleaguered, heartbreaking—Jane is a woman who just wants to pull together and will do anything to make that happen. Even if means following the cryptic clues of possibly fraudulent psychic.
— look at the idea of legacy. -
The Cliffs is rich with ghosts, and its message is that some day we might be forgotten, but who we are and what we do never truly vanishes from this world....[Sullivan] tells the tender love story of a widow and her housekeeper and a story of a mother's love for her child.
— Laurie Hertzel, Minneapolis StarTribune -
This highly anticipated novel from Sullivan was worth the wait....A beautifully written, expansive novel, sure to please fans of Daniel Mason’s North Woods or the work of Kate Morton and Susanna Kearsley.
— Library Journal -
Sullivan thoughtfully explores both Jane’s inner life and the history of the Maine coast, weaving stories of settlers, Shakers, and Indigenous inhabitants of the area with the contemporary plot. Jane is a complex character shaped by her past and trying to figure out her future, and her research leads to an overarching theme: whose story is remembered and told, and why?
— Booklist -
The Cliffs is rich with ghosts, and its message is that some day we might be forgotten, but who we are and what we do never truly vanishes from this world....[Sullivan] tells the tender love story of a widow and her housekeeper and a story of a mother's love for her child.
— Laurie Hertzel, Minneapolis StarTribune -
Sullivan has found the perfect heroine for her compulsively readable novel. Funny, beleaguered, heartbreaking—Jane is a woman who just wants to pull together and will do anything to make that happen. Even if means following the cryptic clues of possibly fraudulent psychic.
— Leigh Newman, Oprah Daily -
A dilapidated lavender mansion, perched high on a craggy bluff in Maine, turns out to be more than a home: It’s the key to a century of hopes, misdeeds and family ghosts.
— The New York Times -
A fascinating look at the idea of legacy.
— Real Simple -
J. Courtney Sullivan is so skilled at multi-threaded narratives, and this is her most ambitious book yet. Weaving together the stories of women in Maine over centuries, this novel is about maternal loss and trauma, the idea of home, and most affecting, the stories that remain untold.
— Emma Straub, New York Times best-selling author of This Time Tomorrow -
Sullivan...writes with her usual compassion, insight, and sensitivity, creating multidimensional characters about whom, even as they make regrettable mistakes, the reader unwaveringly cares. She also tells a broader story of America’s complicated history, weaving in accounts of Indigenous and Shaker women, and poses powerful questions about how to right the wrongs of the past. Sullivan artfully and astutely engages with difficult topics in this absorbing, affecting novel.
— Kirkus, starred review -
Lovely and lively… In J. Courtney Sullivan’s latest treasure of a novel, The Cliffs, the house is itself a major character… Shot through with empathy and humor… Sullivan’s extraordinary book… contains a hopeful vision of cultural and social justice, and does so with plenty of humane and humorous insights.
— Daneet Steffens, The Boston Globe -
Wonderful… Fascinating… Riveting… The Cliffs is both a mystery and a portrayal of houses, people and geographical locations…This skillful novel makes the case that knowing what came before offers us our best chance to truly understand our connections to one another, and what we owe to the land we inhabit.
— Alice Elliott Dark, New York Times Book Review -
Characters in this novel are created with considerable authorial care, and Sullivan’s historical research yields numerous sections with substantial depth....One of the pleasures of reading Sullivan’s novels: getting to know interestingly flawed characters in richly composed settings....Sullivan has included a wealth of details that are by turns lovely or heartbreaking....Sullivan’s sensitive portrayals...demonstrate the power of reading fiction.
— Carol Iaciofano Aucoin, WBUR
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About J. Courtney Sullivan
J. Courtney Sullivan is the New York Times bestselling author of the novels The Engagements, Maine, and Commencement. Maine was named a 2011 Time magazine Best Book of the Year and a Washington Post Notable Book. The Engagements was one of People magazine’s Top Ten Books of 2013 and an Irish Times Best Book of the Year. She has contributed to the New York Times Book Review, Chicago Tribune, New York magazine, Elle, Glamour, Allure, Real Simple, and O: The Oprah Magazine, among many other publications.
About the Narrators
Brittany Pressley has won several Earphones Awards as well as the prestigious Audie Award for Best Narration in 2018. She has recorded over one hundred titles and has received several nominations for American Library Association’s annual list of Amazing Audiobooks for Young Adults. She is also an accomplished singer-songwriter and voice actress. Her voice can be heard on national and international TV and radio commercials as well as several animated series and video games. She is a graduate of Columbia University.
Cassandra Campbell has won multiple Audie Awards, Earphones Awards, and the prestigious Odyssey Award for narration. She was been named a “Best Voice” by AudioFile magazine and in 2018 was inducted in Audible’s inaugural Narrator Hall of Fame.
Kimberly Farr is an actress and winner of numerous AudioFile Earphones Awards for narration. She has appeared on Broadway and at the New York Shakespeare Festival, the Roundabout Theatre, Playwright’s Horizons, and the American Place. She created the role of “Eve” in Arthur Miller’s first and only musical, Up from Paradise, which was directed by the author. She appeared with Vanessa Redgrave in the Broadway production of The Lady from the Sea and has acted in regional theaters across the country, including a performance in the original production of The 1940’s Radio Hour at Washington, DC’s Arena Stage.
Emily Lawrence, an actor and writer, is passionate about bringing stories to life. Her greatest strength as a performer is her ability to bring herself to the role, creating a wide range of emotionally resonant performances that leap off the page, stage, or screen. Her favorite characters are complicated, conflicted, and still searching for their inner truths. She has narrated more than 425 audiobooks, many of which were USA Today or New York Times bestsellers, and has also worked in film, television, and theater. Born and raised in New York, she moved to Los Angeles shortly after receiving her BFA in drama from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. She also lived in London while studying at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. Her greatest loves are acting and reading, so narrating audiobooks is a dream come true. Her other passions include traveling, LARPing, aerial circus, and chocolate.