This is a slow-burn novel about a house in Maine and its occupants over centuries. There is a LOT going on here, including ghosts, spiritualism, family trauma, and more. We spend most of our time with Jane, our flawed protagonist from the present-day timeline, but there are some interludes where we hear from other characters. A little busy with a neatly wrapped up ending, a pleasant summer read that will transport you to Maine.

I enjoyed the ghost story and the gothic elements the author used in this book. I didn't enjoy all the extra story lines and info dumping. It easily could have been a hundred pages less if it had more show and less tell. I did a lot of skimming.
Thank you Netgalley for the review copy.

This is a history buffs love letter in fiction to a fictional town. If you love old history of houses, Indians, that sort of thing, you'll love this book.

I loved the multiple layers and time jumps of this book. It’s so interesting to view the same location through so many different lenses. 4 stars because some parts of the book felt slower and it took me longer than I normally do to get back into it

The scenic description drew me right in - an abandoned home overlooking a seaside cliff. Who lived there? What secrets did they hold?

To answer these questions, the author goes through several POVs and time periods which can be tricky to keep track of.

It starts with a mysterious element with intertwining family drama before taking a hard historical shift to draw in commentary on who the land belongs to.

While I found this exploration of Native ownership interesting and important, it felt jarring and drawn out as it was positioned in this part of the novel. However, right after that, it gets juicy with interweaving stories and scandals simmering throughout.

I thought it would take a more mystical turn, but every time it looked like it was tip-toeing in that direction, the story quickly retreated.

Ultimately, it’s a story about home (I’m kind of surprised the title didn’t follow suit) and what that means for a single, special place occupied by so many.

Jane (an archivist) returns to her mother’s home in Maine after a drunken night destroys her career and marriage. She is finally clearing out her mother’s home to sell it and figure out her next steps in life. The old abandoned home on the cliffs (that she was obsessed with as a teenager) has a new owner who is renovating it and wants to know more about its history and hires Jane to investigate. As Jane investigates, the novel is infused with Jane’s backstory and those who have histories connected to the land and to the home. Along with her best friend Allison, Jane not only unearths the story of the house, but also finds a new path forward in healing herself.

I enjoyed the overall story to this one. I did feel like the very long chapters of the backstories of the land and some side characters broke up the flow of the story. Some of them were very dense with factual history that felt a bit like a slog. While I appreciated the well researched historical record (especially as it relates to the original Indigenous population) it felt a bit overkill and disjointed in this book.

Thank you to @aaknopf @pantheonbooks @vintageanchorbooks @netgalley for a digital review copy of this new release

Set on the picturesque coast of Maine in the small town of Awadapquit, Jane is spending time clearing out her mother’s home after she succumbed to lung cancer. Having an elite college education and then working at Harvard for the last ten years, Jane never imagined she would be back in her small town near her best friend Allison, but addiction had other plans for her future.

As Jane is packing up memories of her childhood, she unpacks all the mental baggage she has been carrying around for years. A nearby Victorian house that was her safe haven in high school is now being stripped of its character by an outsider who wants a summer home and Jane the historian is devastated. She works to figure out why this feels like such a loss to her, and while researching the home finds out far more than she bargained for.

The Cliffs reads like literary fiction, so if you are into fast paced books, this is not it. There is a flashback of sorts to one of the residents of the beloved Victorian home for several chapters in the middle, which fits the narrative, but feels like it could have been done in a letter format rather than a separate first person account. The author also has several smaller storylines connected to the same small town that at times feel like unrelated tangents, but eventually are connected in the end. Though I enjoyed much of Jane’s story, her discoveries at times felt preachy to the audience condemning anyone and everyone related to those in the past who did unspeakable things to the marginalized population in the area. Overall The Cliffs was an interesting read, but not my favorite.

Thank you to NetGalley, Knopf, and the author J. Courtney Sullivan for the advanced copy of the book. The Cliffs is out now! All opinions are my own.

Thank you to NetGalley for the opportunity to read an ARC of this book. I am familiar with this author and have read and enjoyed a few of her books. I was intrigued by the synopsis and thought I would be reading a book about an old house and its history. I did enjoy the parts about the house and the women who had lived in it in the past, as well as the story of Jane, who used the house as a getaway as a teenager, but there was so much more going on.

The book was told from several points of view, which I generally like, but in this case, they were so different that at times I felt like I was reading a completely different book from the previous chapter. There were times when it read like a history book, others when it read like historical fiction, and still others when it read like a ghost story. It just went off in too many different directions. And the chapters were so long that by the time I got back to a particular character or POV I had forgotten what happened. I think it would have been a much better book if it had stayed centered on the story of the house it's previous occupants. Although it all came together in the end I thought it was too long and drawn out.

A beautifully written story of an old abandoned VIctorian mansion built on the cliffs of the ocean in Maine. What the mansion meant to the main character early in her life and what it means years later, after it is changed, rebuilt, updated by its new owner. The history, the inhabitants of the home is a beautifully built story in itself! Great read.

3.5 stars, rounded up. The Cliffs is the story of a house: an abandoned Victorian mansion built high on the seaside cliffs outside the small coastal town of Awadapquit, Maine. Jane Flanagan discovered the house as a teenager, and it became a refuge from her volatile mother. Now, twenty years later, Jane's mother has died, and she's returned to Awadapquit after potentially losing both her job as a Harvard archivist and her marriage during a drunken episode at a work event. Jane's Victorian mansion refuge has been completely transformed by its new owner, a wealthy summer person named Genevieve. Genevieve is convinced the house is haunted, and she hires Jane to research the house's fraught history, and the legacies left by the women who lived there in the past.

The Cliffs was my first J. Courtney Sullivan book, and it reminded me in some ways of a Jodi Picoult novel, with some of its thematic elements and the way Sullivan incorporates several topics into the narrative. At the same time, though, Sullivan has a distinct voice and perspective that I appreciated. She clearly did a lot of research into a variety of topics, including but not limited to Maine's indigenous population, the Shaker movement, spiritualism and psychic mediums, and colonialism -- all integrated into a story about generational trauma, alcoholism, motherhood, grief and healing, the complexities of women's relationships, and all the ways a person can be haunted.

Yes, there's certainly a lot going on in The Cliffs. As much as I appreciated all of Sullivan's research, I didn't always find that it was well-incorporated into the narrative, so sometimes the book felt like a history lesson or lecture rather than immersive fiction. For me, this sometimes detracted from the book's true strength -- its strong female characters, their healing and growth -- and made it a less poignant reading experience than I think it would have been otherwise.

Despite being somewhat disjointed and meandering, there is still a powerful, important story being told in The Cliffs: a story about history and heritage and healing, about love and loss and legacy, about acknowledging the mistakes of the past in order to move forward. I'm definitely eager to read more of J. Courtney Sullivan's work.

This is a gorgeous family saga to get sucked into. The story was deeply satisfying and I think it will stick with me.

I received a free ARC ebook of The Cliffs from NetGalley in exchange for an unbiased review.

Love this book. Set in a small southern Maine town, Sullivan immerses readers in the history and beauty that is Awadapquit aka "where the beautiful cliffs meet the sea." (Sullivan surely modeled Awadapquit after my current hometown Ogunquit, "the beautiful place by the sea.") The sense of place that she establishes and its role in the lives of generations of residents is truly astounding. Centered on a seaside cliff, a house incorporates the loves, the loneliness, and the joys of its female occupants and others who love the cliff. Her protagonist, Jane, is a flawed but lovely woman and readers will want her to successfully wade out of the mess she has made out of her life.

Sullivan deftly and beautifully incorporates the indigenous history of the Cliffs with characters who are beautifully rendered. She presents spiritualism, Shakers, and an homage to libraries in this wonderful novel. Additionally, her explanation of epigenetics, generational trauma, is the best I have ever read. (Epigenetics appears in Tommy Orange's Wandering Stars and many other novels.)

Sullivan has written a novel I will think about for years to come.

This book was fantastic! It's not my usual choice but I was hooked immediately. I loved the story of multiple generations and different types of people that all centered around a house and geographical location. The story of Jane made you feel so many emotions, with laughter and thought-provoking circumstances throughout. Not only that, but it was historically so interesting!

This book had a lot going on in it.  It was a story about Jane and her family's history of alcoholism and how it affected everyone,  It was sad how it had affected Jane and her sister, Holly. 
 It was also a story about a purple house on the cliffs and the history of the families that had lived there.  That led to the Shakers and to indigenous tribes that had lived in Maine and what had happened to their people.
It was an interesting story but I felt there was too much going on at times in the book which overpowered the story.  I really wanted to give this book a 3 1/2 star rating but that was not an option. I received an advance copy of this book and I willingly chose to write an honest review.

We’ve heard “if walls could talk” but what about “if the land could talk?”

Our main character is Jane and her personal life is in disarray. Her marriage is in trouble, she’s grieving the death of her mother, her relationship with her sister is strained, and she relies on alcohol to navigate daily life. When she desperately moves back to her childhood home to clean out her mother’s house, Jane connects with an old friend about strange things happening at a local house… the house Jane used to frequent as a trespassing teen… the house on The Cliffs. This book looks at the history of this house and the history of the land on which it was built.

This book was a big undertaking! Sullivan’s love for Maine shines through and she has a clear goal of elevating stories of indigenous people and the erasure that has occurred over generations.

It might be too meandering or preachy for some, but Sullivan is one my of favorite authors and I appreciated her storytelling and willingness to step outside of her typical style for a purpose that felt very important to her. Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an early review copy.

This book was a little uneven — at some points, I was riveted and couldn’t put it down. (I particularly liked stories of Jane’s childhood and struggles with addiction.) And I applaud the author’s desire to tell stories not often given air time, like Eliza’s and the Abenaki people’s. But those sections were so long and not integrated into the plot of the book as to feel like a boring (and somewhat scoldy) history lecture (from a white woman). It broke up the flow of the book and did a disservice to the important content.

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC.

Thank you to netgalley for the arc in exchange for my honest review. There are a lot of characters in this book, several time periods and many moving pieces. I found it difficult to follow at times. Three stars.

The Cliffs is the newest novel written by J. Courtney Sullivan. This one is set in Maine on the grounds of an old property with quite a history. Jane has loved this house since she stumbled upon it as a teenager. Now, after a 20-year absence, she is back in town and can't believe the transformation the house has gone under due to the vision of its current owner. Jane begins digging into the history of the house and what she uncovers has ramifications for all involved who have loved this dwelling. Read and enjoy!

i LOVED the cliffs! the historical elements, the architecture, the characters - what a doozy! while this did take some time for me to get into, im glad i powered through!

THE CLIFFS by J. Courtney Sullivan

A story of a house, over centuries and decades, and the stories lived there. It is a story of women, history, generational trauma, place, and secrets. It’s a highly ambitious novel, covering a lot of different storylines, but it’s tethered by the house on a cliff overlooking the sea, which serves as a vessel for many women’s lives and their most heartbreaking moments. Swipe for synopsis!

My experience reading this book was complicated, but I think it might be one of my favorite books of the year. It started a bit slow, but I found myself thinking about it and wanting to get home to keep reading. Then I hit the 30-40% mark and couldn’t put it down. How Sullivan weaves together the various characters is so interesting. The tiniest little threads are ultimately pulled together in surprising ways.

Sullivan’s writing is beautiful and she has a keen understanding of relationships of all types. What starts as what seems a lively ghost story veers into an in-depth exploration of increasingly damaging choices, repatriation of bodies to lands and peoples, grief, marriage, Indigenous history, and substance abuse issues. It should feel overwhelming, but Sullivan’s deft execution of the story and her development of the characters are anchoring.

Overall, I think this may be hit or miss for people but it was a home run for me.