Debbie Harpham
ABOUT AN UNEXPECTED GUEST:
On a lovely spring day in Paris–post-9/11 and several months after the London Underground bombings–Clare Moorhouse, the Irish-American wife of a high-ranking British diplomat, is arranging an official dinner crucial to her husband’s career. As she shops for fresh stalks of asparagus and works out the menu and seating arrangements, her day is complicated by the abrupt arrival of her son from boarding school in England and a disquieting encounter with a man on the street. More unnerving still is a recurring face in the crowd, one that belonged to another, darker era of her life, long buried.
Like Virginia Woolf did in Mrs. Dalloway, Anne Korkeakivi brilliantly weaves the complexities of an age into an act as deceptively simple as hosting a dinner party. An Unexpected Guest is a page turner.
PRAISE FOR AN UNEXPECTED GUEST:
“With this seemingly slight day-in-the-life tale, Korkeakivi produces a knowing comedy of manners, a politically charged thriller and a genuinely moving study of the human heart.” Kirkus Review
“When I was asked to review a book I love for Off the Shelf, I thought immediately of AN UNEXPECTED GUEST by Anne Korkeakivi. I read it again to remind myself of what I’d loved, to fill my head with Korkeakivi’s beautiful sentences and compelling story, and to inspire myself all over again to celebrate this extraordinary book. When I read the final sentence yesterday—after a headlong, breathless rush through the last hundred pages—I gasped out loud. It was actually better the second time.” Melodie Winawer, Off the Shelf
AUTHOR VISITS:
Anne is available to meet and video chat with your book club. Visit her schedule of availability here.