Black Out » (Bargain)

LISA UNGER, author of the forthcoming novel Black Out, lives in Florida with her husband and daughter.

On the surface, Annie’s life in a wealthy Florida suburb is happy. Her husband, Gray, loves her fiercely; together, they dote on their beautiful young daughter, Victory. But the bubble surrounding Annie is pricked when the demons of her past resurface. These are demons she can’t fully recall because of a highly dissociative state that allowed her to forget the violence of her earlier life as Ophelia March and to start over, under Gray's protection, as Annie Powers. Disturbing events—the appearance of a familiar dark figure on the beach, the mysterious murder of her psychologist—trigger confusing memories for Annie, who realizes she must quickly piece them together before her past comes to claim her future and her daughter.

"[A] hurricane of a thriller...impossible to extract yourself until the last page." —Entertainment Weekly

Today show pick for Top 10 Summer Reads (2008)

"Full of twists and turns. A great read for anyone craving some suspense." —John Searles, Cosmopolitan

"Black Out is riveting psychological suspense of the first order. If you haven't yet experienced Lisa Unger, what are you waiting for?" —Harlan Coben

Publishers Weekly

Annie Powers leads the perfect life in Florida with her husband, Gray, and their four-year-old daughter in this stellar character-driven stand-alone from bestseller Unger (A Sliver of Truth). Less than a decade earlier, however, Annie was Ophelia March, the teenage captive-or accomplice-of spree killer Marlowe Geary. Gray, a partner in his father's private security consultant firm, tracked Marlowe and rescued Ophelia after sending the killer's car over a cliff. Reinventing herself with Gray's help, Annie can't remember all that happened during her years with Marlowe, and she's prone to panic attacks and blackouts. When a strange man appears on her property, Annie's sure Marlowe is back. As a shady police detective digs into her past, Annie must try to recover the memories she buried if she's ever going to be free from Marlowe. Unger expertly turns what could have been a routine serial-killer story into a haunting odyssey for Annie, dropping red herrings and clues along the way until the reader feels as unsettled as Annie. (June)

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