A Guilty Passion

A contemporary romance of a widow’s grief, a new beginning, and a love that has blossomed in the shadows . . . After the sudden death of his brother, Ethan invites his lovely but shattered widow Celeste to his island home off the coast of Australia. He soon discovers that Celeste is nothing like the woman his brother described, an unrepentant flirt. Instead, she is a gentle but passionate woman who knows her own heart—a woman capable of resurrecting buried memories . . . For years, Ethan has fought the feelings that Celeste has stirred inside of him. Now is his chance to let go of his guilt, recognize the love shining in her eyes, and use their passion to repair past mistakes.

Twenty-two-year-old Rebecca has just graduated from university with top grades. One day, she comes across Benedict, a gorgeous anthropologist with beautiful golden-brown eyes who’s much older than she. Her close friends warn her that he’s a complicated man, but Rebecca sticks to her instincts, telling herself that she won’t regret anything even if she gets hurt. Benedict escorts her like a gentleman, and things go well for the couple. Little does young Rebecca know that there’s more to their relationship than meets the eye…

From the acclaimed author of Atticus and Mariette in Ecstasy comes a stylish novel set in the hard-drinking, fast-living New York City of the Jazz Age that follows two lovers in a torrid affair on an arc of murder and sexual self-destruction. Based on a real case whose lurid details scandalized Americans in 1927 and sold millions of newspapers, acclaimed novelist Ron Hansen’s latest work is a tour de force of erotic tension and looming violence. Trapped in a loveless marriage, Ruth Snyder is a voluptuous, reckless, and altogether irresistible woman who wishes not only to escape her husband but that he die—and the sooner the better. No less miserable in his own tedious marriage is Judd Gray, a dapper corset-and-brassiere salesman who travels the Northeast peddling his wares. He meets Ruth in a Manhattan diner, and soon they are conducting a white-hot affair involving hotel rooms, secret letters, clandestine travels, and above all, Ruth’s increasing insistence that Judd kill her husband. Could he do it? Would he? What follows is a thrilling exposition of a murder plan, a police investigation, the lovers’ attempt to escape prosecution, and a final reckoning for both of them that lays bare the horror and sorrow of what they have done. Dazzlingly well-written and artfully constructed, this impossible-to-put-down story marks the return of an American master known for his elegant and vivid novels that cut cleanly to the essence of the human heart, always and at once mysterious and filled with desire.

A tale based on a true story from 1920s Manhattan follows the affair between voluptuous Ruth Snyder and undergarment salesman Judd Gray, whose plot to kill Ruth's husband triggers an explosive police investigation.