Claire Fuller's Reviews > The Paper Palace

I loved this book. The proof (thanks the publisher) had sat on my shelf for far too long, and when I finally pulled it down, I read it in a day and a half, because I couldn't stop. One of those books that I read while walking around the house, attempting to do other things. Published in July.

Every summer Elle goes to 'The Paper Palace' with her family - husband, three children and mother - a series of cabins in the woods on the Cape. She's been going there since she was a child, when she became friends with the neighbours, including Jonas. Elle and Jonas have a complicated history, which we learn in luminous and illuminating flashbacks. The present-day narrative takes place over the course of 24 hours, at the end of which Elle must make the hardest decision of her life.

In rich and sensuous prose, Cowley Heller, cracks open the human heart and exposes her character's choices: the paths not taken and the devastating consequences. I smelled the old cabins and the backwoods, felt the pond water lapping around my ankles, experienced the love and loss of family. A perceptive and powerful story which will stay with me for a long time.