The Margot Affair

A NEW YORK TIMES EDITORS’ CHOICE The secret daughter of a French politician and a famous actress drops the startling revelation that will shatter her family in this beguiling debut novel of intrigue and betrayal. NAMED ONE OF SUMMER’S BEST BOOKS BY The Skimm • Marie Claire • LitHub • Subway Book Review • Paperback Paris Margot Louve is a secret: the child of a longstanding affair between an influential French politician with presidential ambitions and a prominent stage actress. This hidden family exists in stolen moments in a small Parisian apartment on the Left Bank. It is a house of cards that Margot—fueled by a longing to be seen and heard—decides to tumble. The summer of her seventeenth birthday, she meets the man who will set her plan in motion: a well-regarded journalist whose trust seems surprisingly easy to gain. But as Margot is drawn into an adult world she struggles to comprehend, she learns how one impulsive decision can threaten a family’s love with ruin, shattering the lives of those around her in ways she could never have imagined. Exposing the seams between private lives and public faces, The Margot Affair is a novel of deceit, desire, and transgression—and the exhilarating knife-edge upon which the danger of telling the truth outweighs the cost of keeping secrets.

A seemingly perfect suburban life is shattered when an illicit affair leads to murder in the USA Today–bestselling author’s “gripping psychological thriller” (Booklist). Nora Holliday is not the kind of woman who has an illicit affair with a married man. But Josh Landon is everything Nora’s alcoholic husband isn’t. And now she and Josh are so infatuated, they can’t stay away from one another. Abby Landon, Josh’s daughter, is home from college nursing a broken heart. She’s seeking solace, not more scandal. So when she catches her dad kissing Nora, she vows to take the homewrecker down. To anyone on the outside looking in, Josh’s wife Gwen—Abby’s mother—appears to be living the ideal suburban life. Until she winds up dead. As the search for her killer begins, a long history of twisted secrets begins to unravel . . .

When a woman takes justice into her own hands, her husband suddenly finds himself accomplice to murder in this tense psychological thriller. On their first date back in law school, Natalie and Will Clarke bonded over drinks, dinner—and whether they could get away with murder. Now married, they’ll put the latter to the test when an unchecked danger in their community places their son in jeopardy. Working as a criminal defense attorney, Nat refuses to rely on the broken legal system to keep her family safe. She knows that if you want justice . . . you have to get it yourself. Shocked to discover Nat’s taken matters into her own hands, Will has no choice but to dirty his, also. His family is in way too deep to back down now. He’s just not sure he recognizes the woman he married. Nat’s always been fiercely protective, but never this ruthless or calculating. With the police poking holes in their airtight plan, what will be the first to fall apart: their scandalous secret—or their marriage?

A beautiful debut set around the creation of the world-famous Monterey Bay Aquarium--and the last days of John Steinbeck's Cannery Row In 1940, fifteen year-old Margot Fiske arrives on the shores of Monterey Bay with her eccentric entrepreneur father. Margot has been her father's apprentice all over the world, until an accident in Monterey's tide pools drives them apart and plunges her head-first into the mayhem of John Steinbeck's Cannery Row. Steinbeck is hiding out from his burgeoning fame at the raucous lab of Ed Ricketts, the biologist known as Doc in Cannery Row. Ricketts, a charismatic bohemian, quickly becomes the object of Margot's fascination. Despite Steinbeck's protests and her father's misgivings, she wrangles a job as Ricketts's sketch artist and begins drawing the strange and wonderful sea creatures he pulls from the waters of the bay. Unbeknownst to Margot, her father is also working with Ricketts. He is soliciting the biologist's advice on his most ambitious and controversial project to date: the transformation of the Row's largest cannery into an aquarium. When Margot begins an affair with Ricketts, she sets in motion a chain of events that will affect not just the two of them, but the future of Monterey as well. Alternating between past and present, Monterey Bay explores histories both imagined and actual to create an unforgettable portrait of an exceptional woman, a world-famous aquarium, and the beloved town they both call home.

An “exquisite” (The New York Times Book Review, Editors’ Choice) and “wonderfully Parisian” (Leila Slimani, author of The Perfect Nanny) debut novel of intrigue and deception. “Betrayal and desire fuel the story of Margot, the secret daughter of a twenty-year affair between a French politician and a famous actress. . . . A startling, affecting first book by an author who is confident in her craft.”—The New York Times Margot Louve has lived her whole life as a secret. The hidden daughter of a long-standing affair, she exists with her mother in the shadows, living in a small Parisian apartment on the Left Bank. It is a house of cards that Margot—fueled by a longing to be seen and heard—decides to tumble. The summer of her seventeenth birthday, she meets a well-regarded journalist who will set her plan in motion. But as Margot is drawn into an adult world she struggles to comprehend, she learns how one impulsive decision can shatter the lives of those around her in ways she could never have imagined. Incisively exposing the seams between private lives and public faces, The Margot Affair is a simmering exploration of desire, transgression, and the dangers of speaking the truth.

The secret daughter of a French politician and a famous actress drops a bombshell revelation that shatters her family, in this intimate and beguiling debut of intrigue and betrayal from a searing new voice in literary fiction.

Margot, a beautiful, young, American psychologist living in Barcelona, seems to have it all: a happy marriage, a flourishing practice serving the ex-pat community and an enviable social life in this vibrant and culture rich city. But when she is drawn into an obsessive, sexually charged affair and two of her clients are found dead in mysterious circumstances, she is forced to question her professional, personal and sexual boundaries. Whose secrets hold the key to the horrific death of the young lovers? Her husband's? Her lover's?