The story begins with a teenage Jane who comes across a long abandoned home in her small town in Maine. She is immediately drawn to the house and all the items still left inside. The house quickly became a safe haven for Jane as she tries to imagine the lives of the people who have lived there.

Years later circumstances bring Jane, now an archivist, back home and she is once again drawn to the house and its history.

This novel has so many elements in it that I typically love. A story about a town that spans generations and a mystery involving a beautiful home on the cliffs of the town that may be haunted. The historical details were so fascinating. It was clear the author was very passionate about the subject and must have done extensive research. However, the story seemed to loose steam in the middle. With so much focus on the history of the town the book began to read like a textbook and I lost the threads of the mystery element. While I found the conclusion satisfying, I feel the story could have benefited from a tightening up of the plot and a slight reduction in the historical content. If you are a history buff this story will definitely be for you.

This book took me by surprise and the supernatural elements were refreshing and not too much. Sullivan weaves a tale through history within an enchanting setting.

This book is part history, part mystery, and part mystical-ghost story. It's very atmospheric, with the abandoned house, the cliffs, and Sullivan creates a strong sense of foreboding and unease. I didn't find the haunting and details about the family history as engaging, but others may enjoy this. I would recommend for readers who love historical fiction, a striking sense of place, and paranormal mysteries. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.
#TheCliffs
#NetGalley

This book was compelling and especially the last third I was eager to read quickly. However, it really dragged in sections where it became more recitation of facts than storytelling, and the jumps in storyline were sometimes jarring. It's also very hard to stay with the unlikeable main character. It felt like there was a compelling story within this book, but it needed sharper editing and a bit more focus and it still could have tied together in a satisfying way. It felt like it only had one foot in historical fiction and while I'm glad I finished, it took some effort.

When I first read the description of the book, I wasn't that excited: a woman is sad that a beloved teenage hideaway/house was purchased by someone who changed it? So what? And then I started reading. It had been a minute since the last time I read a J Courtney Sullivan book, and this book reminded me of why I love her books so much. She draws the reader in and the reader becomes absolutely immersed in the world Sullivan has created. She writes real, flawed characters that have realistic redemption arcs, where everything isn't tied up neatly in a bow, but you can see that it might be. Sullivan meticulously researches her topics, so much so that you learn while you're deeply embroiled in a novel--the best of both worlds.

Jane escaped her small town and earned an illustrious job that she loved and married a man who was her soul mate. But then, after one night, everything exploded and she went back to her small town under the auspices of cleaning out her now-deceased mother's house but really because she had nowhere else to go. Jane returns to her best friend Allison, her sister Holly, and meets new town resident Genevieve (who bought the aformentioned teenage hideway/house). Through a chance opportunity to research the old house Jane was once obsessed with, she goes on a journey through the town's history and founding by white people. She learns of the origins of Shakers, meets Spiritualists, and dives deep into the Abenaki's seemingly untold story. Jane also unwittingly finds her way out of the rock bottom she finds herself in through the research and hometown she had tried so hard to leave behind.

While some may complain about the history of the book, I think it only enhanced it. We can read a hundred books about a woman trying to get out of rock bottom, but how many make us understand that the streets we walk on were not always ours? How many of them take us to a deeper understanding of our country's founding by whites? How often do you get to learn about a Native tribe in such colorful detail?
And I think one of the aspects of the Abenaki history woven into this book about white women in Maine is that it's done so well. How many people (women?) would pick up this book that's seemingly about a white woman who's angry about a house remodel and learn about the history of people they probably couldn't have named before? I love it. It's brilliant. And I hope that whether or not Sullivan meant to, it opens eyes that had previously been shut.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Knopf for the ARC of this book.

At the opening of The Cliffs, Jane is at the beginning of what feels like a promising adult life - about to go off to a prestigious college. Five years later, she is on what she hopes is a temporary leave from her job, her marriage, and her life. She has returned to her small hometown in Maine on the pretense of getting her recently passed mom's house ready for sale, but if she's honest with herself, she also has nowhere else to go. When the new owner of an old house Jane has always felt connected to asks for her help researching the history of the place, the novel becomes an exploration of the multi-layered history of Maine as well as an archival exploration of how Jane has ended up at this point in her own life.

I enjoyed many aspects of the book. I read it in Maine, and felt deeply connected to the place as a result of J. Courtney Sullivan's deeply personal connection to the state as well as the copious research she always does. I also admire that we met a large cast of characters and they all felt like real, flawed people.

However, the narrative often felt disconnected to me. It felt like Sullivan was so inspired by the research she did that she wanted to include all aspects of it (the history of Spiritualism! A local shipwreck story! The founding of the Shaker religion! The history of the local Native American Nations!) even when those aspects did not connect organically. I have seen others describe her writing style as lecturey, and while I didn't actually feel preached AT, I did often feel like she was in front of a classroom, presenting her findings in breathless wonder. It's beautiful to see that passion, but it didn't come together as a complete narrative for me.

Thank you to NetGalley for the opportunity to receive an Advanced Readers Copy!

J. Courtney Sullivan is becoming one of my favorite authors. (“Maine” and “Saints For All Occasions” were also great reads.) “The Cliffs” takes place in Maine and tells the stories of multiple generations of women and their impact on a local town. It’s got great historical information woven throughout the story, which I loved! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Thanks to @netgalley for a free copy in exchange for honest review.

Thank you Netgalley and Publisher Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage and Anchor for an early copy. This review is my personal opinion.
Mystery? Historical Fiction? History Lesson? I can’t quite decide.
Jane, as an adolescent, was drawn to a long abandoned house on a cliff. It was as if its inhabitants just walked away. Everything was left, clothes, dishes, everything. Twenty years later Jane returns home in disgrace to find the home drastically remodeled. The new owner is convinced the house is haunted and wants Jane to research its history. Here is where the book turns out to be a long drawn out history lesson with many characters. This is also where I began to lose interest. Heavy on past lives and the effects of alcoholism I was hoping for more from this book. Sadly, it was not. 3.5 stars.

I love J. Courtney Sullivan so much, The Engagements is one of my favorite books. This just wasn’t for me. I don’t like creepy, so the spirit angle didn’t do it for me. I just wasn’t pulled in like I have been by her past books.

Jane Flanagan wanted to be the one that got out of her small hometown. She is smart and used that to escape, but in her late 30s, she finds hereslf back repeating the cycles of alcoholism and denial that have plagued women in her family. Jane is both sympathetic and frustrating in turn as she grapples with what comes next in her life.

Her story plays out against her research on the history of the town, centering on a secluded house that holds hundreds of years of women's stories. There are a lot of threads here - indigenous stories, spiritualism, Shakers, the settlement of New England and feminist themes of each.

I look forward to the release of The Cliffs to hear others' thoughts on these big themes and Jane's story - I was riveted from start to finish.

J. Courtney Sullivan's The Cliffs...Such a thought provoking book...This book has it all - History, Romance, Addiction, Spirits AND mom's name! That was unexpected (or was it). WOW I was not expecting to get so much from this book. I have been wanting to go to Maine. Now I will see it through different eyes. Great ending to the story as well. I highly recommend this book. Thank you NetGalley for the advance read and introducing a new author to me :) !

Jane Sullivan is a Harvard archivist, who returns home to Maine after engaging in behavior that puts her marriage and career on the rocks. She has come home to deal with packing up her mom’s house after her death while she faces a very uncertain future. At the center of the story is a secluded, abandoned Victorian home that Jane used to visit as a teenager and used to escape the tense relationship with her mother. As an adult, she is asked by the current owner to investigate its history. In her quest to explore this history, the reader learns about the Shakers, Native Americans, colonialism, stolen/sold artifacts and psychic mediums.

Overall, the book was interesting and I enjoyed reading it, but at times found it challenging to keep track of the various themes being explored in the book that linked to Jane and/or the house. Any one of those themes could have been its own story. However, I would still recommend the book because of the focus on family, relationships and our legacies.

I received a complimentary copy of this book from #NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions expressed in this review are my own.

#TheCliffs #JCourtneySullivan

I have loved everything that J. Courtney Sullivan has written!
I was so thrilled to get my hands on this early, but it felt a bit haphazard to me in the end. I felt like Big Issues kept coming up and that there were so many I just felt overwhelmed. Like it was trying to do too much. I LOVED the creepy early parts so very much.

This historical fiction novel is set in New England, more specifically Maine and New Hampshire. It is the interweaving of many generations of women and their experiences on the same land in New England. In modern time, the story follows Jane, who is struggling with alcoholism and the ways in which alcohol has impacted her marriage and career. Jane begins researching the history of a house on the cliffs in her hometown and discovers stories of love and loss, The book poses ethical questions of who creates history and who controls historical artifacts - do they belong in a museum or should they return to the people in which they belong to (and were often stolen from)? This was a 5-star read for me!

There’s a lot going on in this story, maybe almost too much. The setting of the old house on the cliffs is amazing and I loved the background story and the young girls visiting the house and suspecting it’s haunted. Janes life has been full of struggles and I liked how her friend supported her when her family couldn’t. But I felt the story got a little lost in so must history of the Shakers, the mediums and the history of the area and of Jane’s family.. life is complicated and it was a good ending.

Jane's life is falling apart. She is an alcoholic in denial, and her actions have endangered both her marriage and her job. To hide from her troubles, she returns to her childhood home in Maine under the guise of cleaning out the house after her mother's death.

Jane is so deep in denial she might as well be drowning. She thinks she is better than her mother was and her sister is, since they are both alcoholics who make money by buying and selling other people's junk, a profession she just can't see the point of. Because Jane works for a museum, highlighting the lives of accomplished women. After she agrees to a reading from a psychic to help out a friend, Jane gets interested in the history of her family and in the process is hired by the woman who has bought the old house she used to hang out at when she was a teen to research the history of that home. But often when you dig, you find things you didn't mean to look for.

I was a little concerned going into this because I read a few reviews that said the historical tangents were too much, but I really enjoyed them! Honestly, I learned more about the Indigenous people of Maine and the Shakers while reading this book than I did in my entire 13 years of schooling there. There were a lot of women in this book and not a lot of men, and it was nice to not have their voices be centered. Some of the points of view were unexpected, but I appreciated them. Not every woman here is "good", and I often wanted to grab Jane and shake some sense into her, but I enjoyed the journey all the same.

Thanks to NetGalley for an advanced copy of this book!
Overall I think this book was trying to do too much- the storyline was fine; Jane spends the summer uncovering the past history of a house from her hometown and in the process uncovers some hidden history about her own family's origins on the island. The author though tried to pull in all sorts of other topics ( environmental impact of colonization, Native American and white relations, the spiritualist movement) that just felt forced within the overall plot. She tried tying them into Jane's storyline, but there were times when it felt like I was reading a Wikipedia article on the topic instead; for me it just bogged the story line down. If you can breeze past those points, and enjoy a slow burn of a plot with no real bag or twist at the end, then this might be the book for you.

Thanks NetGalley for giving me an ARC of this one to review. I had high hopes for this book - a house with a "history," multiple timelines, digging into why there might be a ghost - all of these things are usually in my wheelhouse. And, I love a book that educates me on a part of history I was previously unfamiliar with when it is done subtly as part of the story. Alas, there was nothing subtle about this book. It seems to meander a bit when the story goes into its earliest history. And at times, it feels downright preachy. Perhaps if the story had been a little tighter and not been trying to cover so many things it would have worked better for me?

I am a J Courtney Sullivan completist and was very excited to read The Cliffs, her new novel. I feel this was a bit of a departure for her with a move into historical fiction and I really enjoyed it! Sullivan is able to blend a current timeline with three historical timelines all featuring strong female characters and tying together to one house on the coast of Maine. As a talented writer, Sullivan is able to tie all three storylines together effectively with a focus on the indigenous history of Maine and some magical realism as well! There are a lot of characters and timelines to track but the author weaves them together very well. I really enjoyed this book and think others will as well.

Thank you Knopf and J Courtney Sullivan for the advanced copy!

I am a huge fan of Sullivan’s, having read all of her previous novels, and she doesn’t disappoint. I especially enjoyed being back in her beloved Maine and following young Jane and her fascination with the once glorious now abandoned house. Seeing it through eyes and imagination really drew me in. I liked the chance to get to know Jane from teenager to adulthood. Where there is family drama, an unlikeable character, I’m in, the historical fiction was a bonus.

Thank you to NetGalley and Knopf for this ARC in exchange for my honest review.