| January 2008 NY: HarperCollins First edition, first printing, mint, new/unread in a flawless dustjacket, signed by the author.span> In this compelling novel–a cross between Lady Chatterley’s Lover and The Aviator–the acclaimed modern master takes us to riveting new territory.
Part love story, part murder mystery, Russell Banks’s The Reserve is as gripping as it is beautifully written, set in a pre-WWII world of class, politics, art, love and madness. Vanessa
Cole is a stunningly beautiful and wild heiress, her parents’ adopted only daughter. Twice-married, she has been scandalously linked to rich
and famous men. On the night of July 4, 1936, inside the Cole family’s
remote Adirondack Mountain enclave, known as the Reserve, Vanessa will
lose her father to a heart attack–and meet Jordan Groves, a seductively
carefree local artist whose leftist political loyalties to his working
class neighbours are undercut by his wealth and his clientele. Jordan
is easy prey for Vanessa’s electrifying charm. But the heiress carries
a dark family secret. Unhinged by her father’s unexpected death, she
begins to spin out of control, manipulating and destroying the lives of
all who cross her path. Moving from the secluded beauty of the
Adirondacks to war-torn Spain and fascist Germany, filled with
characters that pierce the heart, The Reserve is a passionately
romantic novel of suspense and drama that adds a new dimension to this
acclaimed author’s extraordinary repertoire. |