The Returned: The New York Times bestselling debut from the author of Hell of a Book

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Deciding to have a girl’s weekend, the four go away to an Inn in the Catskills to reconnect. The Inn boasts rooms that are all quite different and ostentatious. Of course, no one gives a thought to the fact that they are the only ones staying for the weekend! Instead what we have is the ability to see things through the character’s eyes, from their point of view. Yes, this book is a switching POV 1st person. And this is AWFUL. It is awful because it takes all the nuanced depiction of the atmosphere, well acted portrayals and layered conflicts and decides to info-dump the hell out of all of it. Do we need to see Jerome struggling with the conflicts over Lucy, his family and his general feelings of failure and inadequacy? Nope because he’s going to info-dump all of that in one big self-reflecting chunk of text! Lena dealing with survivor’s guilt and fear with her returning twin sister? Sure we could show a series of developing conflict – or we could have her exposition an appalling info dump. The scene I’m watching may not fill in all the blanks, but it could be a start. This hirsute figure is Jérôme (Frédéric Pierrot), his state of mind as ragged as his hair. Alongside him is a new character, Berg (Laurent Lucas), an architect recruited to investigate the dam that caused the flood. After speaking their lines, the pair linger silently in consideration of their “ bordel”. Finally, they turn for advice to the 40-year-old in a duffle coat who has just called “ coupez!” behind them. This is Fabrice Gobert, The Returned’s writer and director.

Thank you so much to the publisher, Berkley Publishing, for providing me a copy of this to read and review. It was a fantastic time! All over the world people’s loved ones are returning from beyond. No one knows how or why this is happening, whether it’s a miracle or a sign of the end. Not even Harold and Lucille can agree on whether the boy is real or a wondrous imitation, but one thing they know for sure: he’s their son. As chaos erupts around the globe, the newly reunited Hargrave family finds itself at the center of a community on the brink of collapse, forced to navigate a mysterious new reality and a conflict that threatens to unravel the very meaning of what it is to be human.

Nicholas Sparks excels on the quirky, small-town feel with this book. He created some rather ordinary characters, at first glance uninteresting and at second glance, they were everything I wanted to read. All over the world people’s loved ones are returning from beyond. No one knows how or why, whether it’s a miracle or a sign of the end. But as chaos erupts around the globe, the newly reunited family finds itself at the center of a community on the brink of collapse, forced to navigate a mysterious new reality. I loved learning about beehives. Keeping bees alive is primal to our survival. So I was very interested in them.

Throughout, these characters’ stories build and build and as they converge, they astonish. For while this heartbreaking and magical book entertains and is at once about family, love of parents and children, art, and money, there always is the tragic story of a police shooting playing over and over on the news.At it's heart, this is really an examination of friendship, if you can believe that from a horror novel, but those friendship aspects tugged at my heartstrings a little bit. Besties since college, Julie, Elise, Mae and Molly have always kept in touch. When Julie goes missing, everything changes. Elise is the only one who holds out hope for her return, even after a few years go by. Jacob was time out of sync, time more perfect than it had been. He was life the way it was supposed to be all those years ago. That’s what all the Returned were.”

This fabulous foursome all live in different places and it can be tough to stay close over such distances. Mae, Molly, Elise, and Jules are all friends, but as always, with dynamics like this, there can only be one best friend, and it works out great if the same people find each other to be besties. Mae and Molly have always been closer, and so when Jules disappeared, Elise, who always felt that Jules was her BFF, became the wheel on an axle missing the other wheel. So either their relationship would have to evolve into an Estonian Nobe 100 or Elise was always going to feel like a teeter totter without someone to make her bounce. THE RETURN was a generally enjoyable, quirky, small-town story with grief, illness, bees, romance and that signature lament. It was pretty wholesome and it left a good feeling on completion. I absolutely loved how Harrison layered all those spooky elements - and how I couldn't tell fact from fiction.

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With spare, elegant prose and searing emotional depth, award-winning poet Jason Mott explores timeless questions of faith and morality, love and responsibility. A spellbinding and stunning debut, The Returned is an unforgettable story that marks the arrival of an important new voice in contemporary fiction. About Jason Mott And if this book can be published, I think I really should get down to it and write my book, because I'm pretty sure I'd make a better manuscript than this. When I was a teenager, [my grandfather] told me that one day I would meet a woman who would change my life forever.” Harold and Lucille Hargrave's lives have been both joyful and sorrowful in the decades since their only son, Jacob, died tragically at his eighth birthday party in 1966. In their old age they've settled comfortably into life without him, their wounds tempered through the grace of time ... Until one day Jacob mysteriously appears on their doorstep-flesh and blood, their sweet, precocious child, still eight years old.