Pun Salad

I can't figure out why I put this book on my get-at-library list. It's not my cup of tea at all. Your mileage may vary. Especially if (and pardon my blatant sexism) you are a woman driver.

The book is mostly set in 1983 Maine. The book's narrator is Kit McDeere, who takes a job as a caregiver to Lenora Hope, the only survivor (uh, seemingly) of a once-wealthy family. Lenora is bed-ridden, mute, and mostly paralyzed. She lives in the decrepit family mansion, which clings to a decaying cliffside above the crashing waves of the Atlantic. Kit joins a small staff dedicated to keeping Lenora alive. Oh, and she's replacing the previous caregiver, who vanished without notice one dark and stormy night. (Well, maybe not stormy.)

The mansion's precarious situation is the Chekhov's gun of the novel. It keeps getting more precarious throughout. You know what's gonna happen, sooner or later. (Later, as it turns out.) But nobody says, "Gee, we better move somewhere else."

About that "only survivor" thing: Lenora is widely believed to have murdered her entire family back in 1929, father, mother, and sister. Proof was lacking, however. (When all is revealed at the end, you have to wonder why the investigators didn't ask some pretty obvious questions at the time.)

Kit, as it turns out, was also credibly suspected of killing her pain-wracked mother with a fentanyl overdose, also never formally charged due to lack of evidence. So there's a connection, of sorts.

There are a lot of characters, most hiding dark secrets about their past. The prose is excessively gothic and goopy. Random page:

I let him kiss me then. My first kiss. It was greater than I ever dreamed it would be. When his lips touched mine, it felt as if my entire existence was exploding like a firework. Bright and sparkling and white hot.

Kit gradually learns more about the events surrounding 1929, mostly because Lenora can use one hand to type. All is revealed at the end, of course. And it is completely unbelievable.