The Cliffs: Reese's Book Club

A Novel

By: J. Courtney Sullivan

Narrated by: Kimberly Farr, Tanis Parenteau, Emily Lawrence, Brittany Pressley, Cassandra Campbell

REESE'S BOOK CLUB PICK • A novel of family, secrets, ghosts, and homecoming set on the seaside cliffs of Maine, by the best-selling author of Friends and Strangers

“A stunning achievement, and J. Courtney Sullivan’s best book yet. Sullivan weaves a narrative that’s fascinating and thought-provoking. I literally could not put this book down.”—Ann Napolitano, New York Times best-selling author of Hello Beautiful

On a secluded bluff overlooking the ocean sits a Victorian house, lavender with gingerbread trim, a home that contains a century’s worth of secrets. By the time Jane Flanagan discovers the house as a teenager, it has long been abandoned. The place is an irresistible mystery to Jane. There are still clothes in the closets, marbles rolling across the floors, and dishes in the cupboards, even though no one has set foot there in decades. The house becomes a hideaway for Jane, a place to escape her volatile mother.

Twenty years later, now a Harvard archivist, she returns home to Maine following a terrible mistake that threatens both her career and her marriage. Jane is horrified to find the Victorian is now barely recognizable. The new owner, Genevieve, a summer person from Beacon Hill, has gutted it, transforming the house into a glossy white monstrosity straight out of a shelter magazine. Strangely, Genevieve is convinced that the house is haunted—perhaps the product of something troubling Genevieve herself has done. She hires Jane to research the history of the place and the women who lived there. The story Jane uncovers—of lovers lost at sea, romantic longing, shattering loss, artistic awakening, historical artifacts stolen and sold, and the long shadow of colonialism—is even older than Maine itself. Enthralling, richly imagined, filled with psychic mediums and charlatans, spirits and past lives, mothers, marriage, and the legacy of alcoholism, this is a deeply moving novel about the land we inhabit, the women who came before us, and the ways in which none of us will ever truly leave this earth.

©2024 J. Courtney Sullivan (P)2024 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

Named a Best Book of the Month by The New York Times, Real Simple, and Kirkus

"The Cliffs is rich with ghosts, and its message is that some day we might be forgotten, but who we are and what we do never truly vanishes from this world....[Sullivan] tells the tender love story of a widow and her housekeeper and a story of a mother's love for her child."—Laurie Hertzel, Minneapolis StarTribune

"Sullivan has found the perfect heroine for her compulsively readable novel. Funny, beleaguered, heartbreaking—Jane is a woman who just wants to pull together and will do anything to make that happen. Even if means following the cryptic clues of possibly fraudulent psychic."—Leigh Newman, Oprah Daily

"Haunting....Archivist Jane Flanagan returns to her coastal Maine hometown to discover that the long-abandoned gothic house she was obsessed with as a teen has a new owner. Genevieve, a wealthy outsider, has given the once-dilapidated dwelling a misbegotten makeover that she believes has awakened something sinister. In this provocative ghost story that questions how we right our wrongs of the past, the two must team up to rid the mysterious 19th-century home of its spirits and overcome their own demons."—Shannon Carlin, Time

Great main story with a lot of unnecessary depressing fluff about the indigenous.

I loved the main story about Jane, Daisy and all the intertwining stories of various women. All the details of the horrors the indigenous faced could have been left out. It wasn’t necessary to the larger more prominent story. It was as if she just wanted to tell people about those horror stories and how the indigenous had been wronged by the white men and she decided to add it to a book she happened to be writing at the same time. Took up an entire chapter having nothing to do with the rest of the story.I felt like I was held captive and had to listen to those parts in order to get the rest of the story. It was completely unnecessary to push her agenda for cultural reparations.
SPOILER ALERT!!!
Why did they not go find the bones from the graves that had been dug up? That was a main part of the story. The ghost of Daisy wanted her mom to know and Jane never told her. She lied to her. So they were never buried together. That was so disappointing.

Hard to keep up with.

I listen to half the book before I really started to enjoy it. Too many life stories to follow.

Best book of the year

I can’t say enough good things about this book. It’s amazing. I loved every second.

How destructive alcohol addiction can be.

Too long and drawn out.
I loved the historical aspect but not necessarily the way/length in which it was delivered.

Wicked good

Believable , intricate story, gripping, well told. The book spoke to me. Loved it. Get it! Won’t regret it

A lot of positives

There was a lot good about this story, but it could have been wonderful. To me, it felt disjointed. There were several prominent themes that were each singularly focused on for an extended time. It felt like little history lessons. The information was important and relevant but I wish it would have been integrated more smoothly. I still recommend reading it.

Reese Witherspoon choice

I am trying to figure out why. Chopped up story. Jumping from one year abba about the time you get to know the names of those characters, the next chapter has new characters from another era. Very hard to follow

Great read!

I loved the way author connected the struggles of people from the past to modern day. My favorite was Native American story.

Too much of a good thing

There were wonderful historical background stories, but each might have been a book in itself. The constant loooong interruptions to the original modern story were somewhat annoying. The author pulls it together in the end, and every story was worth telling. I learned a lot. But there were many sighs of resignation on my part, as I realized the story I had become invested in was going to be put off for another long, seemingly unrelated story belonging to a yet another new character.

Great story, but choppy as audiobook

It's hard to tell if the book itself is choppy or if the audio version makes it hard to follow. It ended up being enjoyable, though I lost which timeline or person I was following on occasion.

I did enjoy the lack of a predicable cheesy ending. It was genuine and realistic without being boring or completely foreseeable.