GIVEAWAY: 5 copies of Summer Heat: CYPRUS
Thriller set in SOUTHERN FRANCE
24th March 2025
The Cliffhanger by Emily Freud, thriller set in Southern France.
Felix and Emma are a husband and wife writing duo and together they work on the Morgan Savage thriller series. The books until recently have been hugely successful, but now their star is on the wane. They are embarking on volume no. 9 but they are struggling with writers’ block, and so they banish themselves to a bastide in Southern France, with the blessing of their literary agent, Max. There, they will thrash out the bare bones of the plot. That is not all they will be thrashing, as the two have arrived at a crossroads in their relationship and interact with each other like a lightweight version of Roald Dahl’s The Twits. Neither character is likeable.
Felix is spineless with an ingrained drink problem, who was due to take over his father’s London plumbing business (regrettably I thought of Pimlico Plumbers, I now have an image of Felix’s father) but Felix is focussed on driving his writing career forward – much to his father’s disappointment (which, of course, impacts Felix psychologically, which in turn feeds his alcohol habit). Emma is superlative at passive aggressive jibes and undermining retorts.
As the days pass, we learn that Felix is not only a drunkard but has been a naughty boy, as he serially allows himself to be seduced by younger women. His latest squeeze, however, has disappeared and there are mutterings of murder, but he really cannot recollect anything about the period before their departure for France, the time when she seemingly vanished.
Chapters in novel 9 start to evolve for Emma and Felix, and at first the signs are positive that the couple is back on track. But as they disappear down various rabbit holes, the plot starts to conflate with their reality in France, which becomes alarming and confusing – as much for Max as for the reader. This aspect of the novel is, nevertheless, rather inspired, as it captures the contemporary Zeitgeist, given authors team up regularly at the moment to co-author books. There is a fluid sense of smoke and mirrors.
Emma starts sleep walking and Max is worried that she is somehow under the influence of the ghost that is supposed to haunt the house (a young woman in the past plunged to her death over the cliff). He therefore decides – with her apparent permission – to tie her to the bed (as you do) to stop her new habit of nightly wanderings.
The story carries on in similar vein until the police in France set about investigating another disappearance and come knocking on the bastide’s door.
The couple continues to exchange chapters for the new book but Emma’s writing becomes increasingly erratic both in content and spelling (hard to read for Max, harder still for the reader to engage). What is going on?
Max, with his drink problem, is the gift to the author – any odd or bizarre behaviour can be attributable to his addiction. However, it feels like such a cop out in this instance, as he stumbles from one crisis to the next. It can all feel just a bit daft. By the end, I was sick of the mention of his bottles and hangovers, as he croaked his way through his days, posing his questions, blacking out and staggering off for walks.
Not one for me, alas, darting all over the place when not embroiled in drunken exchanges and deranged musings.
Tina for the TripFiction Team
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