{
"item_title" : "Helpless",
"item_author" : [" Jessica Knoll "],
"item_description" : "A NEW YORK TIMES, OPRAH DAILY, CRIME READS, TOWN & COUNTRY, AND BOOKPAGE MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK From the New York Times bestselling author of Luckiest Girl Alive and Bright Young Women comes a sexy new thriller (New York Post) with a shocking and mindbending (SheReads) last page. It's been twelve years since Faye Heron broke Henry Spalding's heart. Henry was her college boyfriend, her first love, but Faye was in danger of being subsumed by him and the intensity of their connection--a connection that took her beyond boundaries she'd only dreamed of crossing. Now, Faye is one half of a power-producing duo with her Hollywood husband. Henry is a married father running the family business. On the surface, both of their lives have essentially gone to plan. When a former and beloved college professor suddenly passes away, Faye and Henry find themselves back on campus for the funeral, circling something old and dangerous. Something, if Faye is honest with herself, she has been trying to duplicate for years. But 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 comes to Henry's remote mountain cabin, she's beside herself. Has Henry brought her here to punish her? She did, after all, write and star in a lauded episode of television based on their indelicate appetites and vicious breakup. As her week of captivity unfolds, Henry's wanton demands intensify, and Faye finds herself pulled back into his irresistible gravity. But as Faye and Henry spiral into their old dynamic, a sprawling, years-old mystery begins to take shape--one that will rewrite history as Faye remembers it and reveal an astounding, cataclysmic truth.",
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A NEW YORK TIMES, OPRAH DAILY, CRIME READS, TOWN & COUNTRY, AND BOOKPAGE MOST ANTICIPATED BOOKFrom the New York Times bestselling author of Luckiest Girl Alive and Bright Young Women comes a "sexy new thriller" (New York Post) with a "shocking and mindbending" (SheReads) last page. It's been twelve years since Faye Heron broke Henry Spalding's heart. Henry was her college boyfriend, her first love, but Faye was in danger of being subsumed by him and the intensity of their connection--a connection that took her beyond boundaries she'd only dreamed of crossing. Now, Faye is one half of a power-producing duo with her Hollywood husband. Henry is a married father running the family business. On the surface, both of their lives have essentially gone to plan. When a former and beloved college professor suddenly passes away, Faye and Henry find themselves back on campus for the funeral, circling something old and dangerous. Something, if Faye is honest with herself, she has been trying to duplicate for years. But 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 comes to Henry's remote mountain cabin, she's beside herself. Has Henry brought her here to punish her? She did, after all, write and star in a lauded episode of television based on their indelicate appetites and vicious breakup. As her week of captivity unfolds, Henry's wanton demands intensify, and Faye finds herself pulled back into his irresistible gravity. But as Faye and Henry spiral into their old dynamic, a sprawling, years-old mystery begins to take shape--one that will rewrite history as Faye remembers it and reveal an astounding, cataclysmic truth.
What makes a toxic-relationship story so irresistible? Just as the characters can’t seem to stay away from each other despite knowing it’s a Very Bad Idea, we can’t stop turning the pages to see what happens next, even if we suspect that finding out will be both electrifying and aggravating—perhaps even disturbing.
Readers in search of books that spin toxic traits into sexy entertainment gold will relish Jessica Knoll’s edgy, darkly romantic thriller, Helpless. After 12 years away, Faye Heron, a multihyphenate Hollywood powerhouse with an equally successful producing-partner husband, returns to her upstate New York alma mater for the funeral of her favorite film professor and mentor Patrick Toner, aka PT.
There, she reunites with PT’s nephews, her friend Campbell and her ex-boyfriend Henry. Faye hasn’t spoken with Henry since their difficult breakup, which she transformed into an Emmy-winning TV episode. She worries he’ll be angry with her, even as her desire for him is inexorably rekindled; she feels “like we are images on one of those infrared cameras, everyone else in blue, us in red. The only two in the room burning with the truth about who I really am.”
Henry, mightily displeased with “the episode,” drugs and kidnaps Faye, hiding her in a remote cabin in the Adirondacks. But is that the only reason he’s locked her away, or is there more to the story? As the two warily circle each other, they fall back into old patterns replete with intense sex, dominance and submission, and sometimes-violent struggles for control. When blackmail and murder come into play, Faye wonders if she’ll make it out of the ordeal alive. “Even if I get out of here and explain I’ve been drugged, kidnapped, starved, forced to wash my hair with Pert Plus, I will be ruined,” she thinks.
Knoll tackles class conflict, taboo desires and long-held secrets rising to the surface—plus a wealth of shocking twists—with skill and aplomb. Helpless is sure to delight fans of Knoll’s previous books, as well as Jean Hanff Korelitz’s The Sequel, Colleen Hoover’s Verity and Emerald Fennell’s film version of Wuthering Heights.
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