The Milly and Grace Girls

At the end of last month, I declared my very first “Tuesdays With Tim Book Club Pick” as Marisha Pessl’s: Night Film.

I was really excited about this book because of all the press it was getting.  Well, I was not disappointed.  I loved it!

Here is the publisher’s description:

A page-turning thriller for readers of Stephen King, Gillian Flynn, and Stieg Larsson,Night Film tells the haunting story of a journalist who becomes obsessed with the mysterious death of a troubled prodigy—the daughter of an iconic, reclusive filmmaker.
 
On a damp October night, beautiful young Ashley Cordova is found dead in an abandoned warehouse in lower Manhattan. Though her death is ruled a suicide, veteran investigative journalist Scott McGrath suspects otherwise. As he probes the strange circumstances surrounding Ashley’s life and death, McGrath comes face-to-face with the legacy of her father: the legendary, reclusive cult-horror-film director Stanislas Cordova—a man who hasn’t been seen in public for more than thirty years.
 For McGrath, another death connected to this seemingly cursed family dynasty seems more than just a coincidence. Though much has been written about Cordova’s dark and unsettling films, very little is known about the man himself.
 Driven by revenge, curiosity, and a need for the truth, McGrath, with the aid of two strangers, is drawn deeper and deeper into Cordova’s eerie, hypnotic world. The last time he got close to exposing the director, McGrath lost his marriage and his career. This time he might lose even more.

 Night Film, the gorgeously written, spellbinding new novel by the dazzlingly inventive Marisha Pessl, will hold you in suspense until you turn the final page.

The number one thing I loved about this book is the character of Cordova: the fictional and legendary film director.  The idea of this elusive, creepy director who no one knows anything about was an ingenious creation by author, Marisha Pessl.  Especially because he is not a main character in the book.  Just the idea of him is.  In this day and age, people are hash tagging, tweeting and pinning to be known and discovered, but not Cordova.  Who is this man? What is he after? Is he evil? Misunderstood? 

Pessl spent a long time with this book (almost 10 years), but also with the world she built within its pages.  I love when authors make worlds so believable that you almost wonder if there really is a Cordova out there somewhere.  She makes the unbelievable, entertaining but also credible! She created this world by designing movie posters for each of Cordova’s films, previews for these films and also by adding screen shots of fake internet sites within the book.  It’s like a children’s book complete with pictures for adults.  It really adds to the reading experience!

There really isn’t much more I can say about this book without spoiling it, so I urge you to try it and you will get lost in the world of Cordova!

Today is the first day of October so my next book club pick is by the King of scary himself: Stephen King.

Stephen King is one of my favorite authors and his brand new novel is the sequel to his 1977 classic: The Shining!  Do you remember it?  Whatever happened to the little boy with telepathic gifts at the Overlook Hotel?  Read it and give yourself a good scare this month of October just in time for Halloween!  And if you need a costume idea for Halloween, check out my post about Halloween Costume Inspiration.

Happy October! Happy Reading! and See you on Tuesdays!