​​Upcoming Books:
March  18 @Hilary
Circe - Madeline Miller
April 22 @Jeri Lynn
Before We Were Yours - Lisa Wingate
May 20 @Debra
The Silent Patient - Alex Michaelides
June 23 @ Anne
Broken Heart of America  - Walter Johnson
July 15 @ Kathy
The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek  - Kim Michele Richardson
September 16 @Maitand
Middlemarch - George Eliot
October 21 @Carol
TBD

Author Bio: 

Alex Michaelides was born in Cyprus on September 4 1977, to a Greek-Cypriot father and English mother. He has a MA in English Literature from Cambridge University and a MFA in Screenwriting from the American Film Institute in Los Angeles. A New York Times bestseller, The Silent Patient (2019) is his debut novel. His second novel, The Maidens will be available June 2021. 

Michaelides was a screenwriter before turning to novels. He wrote The Devil You Know (2013) starring Rosamund Pike and co-wrote The Con is On (2018), with Uma Thurman, Tim Roth, Parker Posey, and Sofia Vergara. Michaelides lives in London. 
Source: Wikipedia
Book Review:
 Crime by the Book (CBTB) has a fine review of The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides, "Rather than investigating a crime, THE SILENT PATIENT investigates the mind of a criminal - and what a gripping investigation it is. THE SILENT PATIENT is immersive and hypnotic—the kind of confidently drawn suspense story that doesn’t need big, flashy twists to keep you hooked… but that delivers an exceptional twist or two anyway."
January 7, 2019 

My Book Stack - on the blog

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The Lost Manuscript by Cathy Bonidan is described as "A delightful literary puzzle, as addictive as a thriller, as moving as a confession." by Christine Fevet-Fleury. The story is told through written letters  exchanged by people trying to solve a 30 year old mystery.  Anne-Lise Briard finds a manuscript in the nightstand drawer while on vacation at the Beau Rivage hotel on the Brittany Coast. She reads it and is touched by its message then decides to reunite it with the author. Her search takes us across Europe to discover the identity of the author. Instead, she find out that the book was edited by more than one author over the years.  It is a sweet book for puzzle lovers and letter writers who yearn for the slow pace and mounting anticipation  of receiving a hand carried letter. 

Read BExtraordinaire Blog for book recommendations, reviews, and other book club updates. ​​
is reading The Silent Patient  by Alex Michaelides for May Book Club.​

​Alex Michaelides' blockbuster first novel,  The Silent Patient combines his fascination with Agatha Christie's suspenseful thrillers, his academic background in Greek mythology, and his post-graduate work in Psychotherapy. In this novel he uses classical elements of storytelling with references from Euripides' play Aclestis and Agatha Christie's Five Little Pigs novel. 

Michaelides begins the novel with a quote by Sigmund Freud, "Unexpressed emotions will never die. They are buried alive and will come forth later in uglier ways."   

In the first chapter the reader is introduced to Alicia  Barrett through her diary entries describing the summer heat of London to that of Greece, and the grass under her feet like flickering flames. She recalls another summer so hot -the summer when her mother drives their car into a brick wall with Alicia strapped-in beside her. Alicia survives and her mother dies.  Was her mother mad and who was she trying to kill herself or Alicia? She worries she has her mother's madness in her blood. 

 Alicia and her husband Gabriel are happy, successful and totally in love. She's an artist and he's  a photographer. Michaelides drops symbolic imagery from the ancient play, Alcetis. Alcetis' husband, the King has been sentenced to die unless he can find someone else who will agree to descend to the fires of Hades. Alcetis agrees to go and is later returned by Apollo. After Alcetis returns home, she remains silent.  Throughout the novel, Michaelides uses this imagery  to build tension, such as Alicia and her husband Gabriel lying in bed in the "hot dead air" and the "hot still humid air" while dining.   She is working on a painting of Jesus on the cross only to realize it is a image of her husband not Jesus.  Has he saved her? Her last painting is a self portrait, titled "Alcetis." What does this mean? This sets the stage for the unwinding of the disturbing events to come. 
The Lyceum Players proudly presented Euripides' Alcestis on November 22, 2019.

BritTv December 9, 2020 Agatha Christie's Poirot - Five Little Pigs

Author Quotes: 
"I studied psychotherapy at a couple of different places – I never completed my studies as I decided I was a writer, not a therapist. But I learned a lot, particularly working with troubled young people at a secure unit. I learned a lot and it made me grow up. The idea for the book had been brewing for many years before that – but when I decided to write an Agatha Christie style novel, I knew I needed an iconic, enclosed location – and the secure psychiatric unit came to mind. "
― Alex Michaelides
On Writing, Growing Up, and Too Much Coffee. Alex Michaelides 
Thrillers and More 
By Miriam van der Linden
Feb 28, 2019
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