Vendor
	Mohrbooks Literary Agency Sebastian Ritscher
Original language
English
Categories
Fiction & Related items

YOU WERE HERE

Gian Sardar

An atmospheric and suspenseful literary time-slip novel with echoes of Kate Atkinson, involving a love triangle in the present-day and in 1948.
With 33 and eager to settle down with her commitment-shy boyfriend in Los Angeles, Abby’s adolescent night terrors of being buried alive return, this time revealing a name from her family’s past. Looking for answers, Abby returns home to Minnesota for the first time in fifteen years. Trying on her grandmother’s mesmerizing diamond ring, the engagement ring she always thought would be hers one day, Abby discovers a cryptic note long hidden beneath the box’s velvet lining.

Death, accidental and early, has always been Abby Walters’ preoccupation.

Now 33 and eager to settle down with her commitment-shy boyfriend in Los Angeles, Abby’s adolescent night terrors of being buried alive return, this time revealing a name from her family’s past. Looking for answers, Abby returns home to Minnesota for the first time in fifteen years. Trying on her grandmother’s mesmerizing diamond ring, the engagement ring she always thought would be hers one day, Abby discovers a cryptic note long hidden beneath the box’s velvet lining.

What secret was her grandmother hiding? And could this be the key to what’s haunting Abby? Reunited with her high school crush Aiden, now a police detective on the trail of a violent criminal, Abby sets out to uncover the past.

And in that past: In 1948 Eva Marten and William Ballantine fall disastrously in love. A poor farm girl with a talent for sewing and a big heart, and city boy born with a silver spoon, they never should have met. Fate brought them together, but it’s too little too late, forcing William to lead a double life.

YOU WERE HERE weaves together two unforgettable love stories, each coming to a shocking end, and offers a glimpse of a past that lives on and the possibilities that linger in a world unseen.

Gian Sardar is the coauthor of the nonfiction title Psychic Junkie. She is also involved in film and is writing the screenplay Recall for Bad Medicine Films. She lives in Los Angeles.

Available products
Book Published 2017-05-16 by Putnam
Book Published 2017-05-16 by Putnam

Comments

YOU WERE HERE is a terrific debut that beautifully spins the tale of two love stories—one set in the past and the other in the present—coiled together by longing, betrayal, and rage that unravel to a stunning and deeply satisfying conclusion. Gian Sardar is a writer to watch.

YOU WERE HERE is a beautiful puzzle box of a book—a page-turner that manages to also be strikingly poetic. I was gripped from the very first page, and moved by the time I made it to the last.

Prepare to be dazzled by hauntingly masterful storytelling! Packed with delicious prose and page-turning intrigue,You Were Here is a remarkable and unforgettable debut.

[An] intricately plotted first novel . . . Sardar keeps the tension high to the very end.

[B]eautifully written . . . this first novel will appeal to readers of Christina Schwarz and Diane Chamberlain.

Artfully weaving the past and present together, You Were Here is a stunning tapestry of a novel full of dreams, nightmares, horrific crimes and long-buried secrets. Gian Sardar shows us the ways in which the past can reach out and take hold of the present; that places and objects hold memories and time is not the linear thing we think it to be.

A nail-biting thriller, a tragic love story from the past, a very contemporary romance, a genuinely scary ghost story with a full-out gothic finale that would make Edgar Allen Poe sit up and applaud—Gian Sardar has confidently and seamlessly woven all these genres into a novel that is completely original and relentlessly engaging.YOU ARE HERE is a bravura, genre-busting performance.

What if love is so powerful that it gives us access to mysterious unseen worlds? This question is at the heart of Gian Sardar’s dizzying and seductive debut novel. As I was reading YOU WERE HERE, I kept wondering about the nature—and value—of love, marriage, and the complex space between. Modern and timeless, part thrilling detective story, part ghost story, part love story, Sardar’s debut is an evocative literary cocktail. I couldn’t put it down!

Sardar's characters are well-developed and her prose is dreamlike, at times reading very much like poetry. . . . [T]his deftly executed study of the dark that lies in the human heart is artfully drawn. An impressive . . . debut with a touch of the otherworldly.

Chinese (simplified): Citic

Sardar creates a suspenseful tale sure to keep readers entertained … The characters are intriguing; Sardar does well at developing them and unfolding them at the right time to reveal just enough to hold readers attention.You Were Here is a unique read that does not disappoint.