{ "item_title" : "The Sequel", "item_author" : [" Jean Hanff Korelitz "], "item_description" : "Sequels are notoriously tricky. Even the characters in The Sequel acknowledge it. They're never as good as the first book, are they?... Well, this one is. By shifting the focus to Anna, Korelitz gives the novel what many sequels lack: a sense of newness. While the story grows more intricate, she remains in control. Her plot ― ha! ― is propulsive, her prose precise.―The New York TimesAfter the insanely readable (Stephen King) and perfectly told (Malcolm Gladwell) New York Times bestseller The Plot comes Jean Hanff Korelitz's equally captivating new novel: The Sequel. Anna Williams-Bonner has taken care of business. That is to say, she's taken care of her husband, bestselling novelist Jacob Finch Bonner, and laid to rest those anonymous accusations of plagiarism that so tormented him. Now she is living the contented life of a literary widow, enjoying her husband's royalty checks in perpetuity, but for the second time in her life, a work of fiction intercedes, and this time it's her own debut novel, The Afterword. After all, how hard can it really be to write a universally lauded bestseller? But when Anna publishes her book and indulges in her own literary acclaim, she begins to receive excerpts of a novel she never expected to see again, a novel that should no longer exist. That it does means something has gone very wrong, and someone out there knows far too much: about her late brother, her late husband, and just possibly... Anna, herself. What does this person want and what are they prepared to do? She has come too far, and worked too hard, to lose what she values most: the sole and uncontested right to her own story. And she is, by any standard, a master storyteller. With her signature wit and sardonic humor, Jean Hanff Korelitz gives readers an antihero to root for while illuminating and satirizing the world of publishing in this deliciously fun and suspenseful read.", "item_img_path" : "https://covers4.booksamillion.com/covers/bam/1/25/087/547/1250875471_b.jpg", "price_data" : { "retail_price" : "29.00", "online_price" : "14.50", "our_price" : "14.50", "club_price" : "14.50", "savings_pct" : "50", "savings_amt" : "14.50", "club_savings_pct" : "50", "club_savings_amt" : "14.50", "discount_pct" : "55", "store_price" : "14.50" } }

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Hell hath no fury like Anna Williams-Bonner in Jean Hanff Korelitz’s The Sequel, a cleverly conceived matryoshka doll of a tale that employs pitch-black humor and nail-biting suspense to excellent effect.

It’s also, well, the sequel to The Plot, the audacious 2021 bestseller that’s soon to be a TV series alongside Korelitz’s other adapted works: Admission, The Latecomer and You Should Have Known (the basis for HBO’s The Undoing).

Fans of Korelitz’s work will be delighted that The Sequel follows in the artfully twisted footsteps of her previous thrillers, this time via the very intelligent and deeply angry Anna, who’s determined to preserve authorship of her life at all costs.

As the story opens, Anna’s on tour for her husband Jacob’s posthumously published book when his editor and agent suggest she write a novel based on her life as bereaved widow of a beloved author. Anna “couldn’t think of a novelist whose next work she was actively waiting for, or whose novel she even cared enough about to keep forever, or whose signature she wanted in her copy of their novel,” but realizes it could be entertaining, if not entirely interesting. After all, she muses about other writers, “If those idiots can do it, how fucking hard can it be?”

The resulting novel, The Afterword, is an immediate bestseller, of course. Anna is jauntily casual about her increased fame until a Post-it note in a book she’s signing reveals her past is not as buried as she thought. Who wrote it? What do they know? And most important: What do they want?

Anna’s cross-country tour of fact-finding and retribution will have readers eagerly flipping the pages to see what on earth she’ll do next. (Hint: It’s not good) She moves from threat to threat, so hell-bent on squelching the truth about her past that she increases her present-day peril. Jacob published and perished; will Anna, too?

Rife with delicious tension and sharply honed satire, The Sequel is a gripping, disturbing and wild ride, with a humdinger of a conclusion that explores just how deadly it can be when someone feels their story isn’t being properly told.