An interesting story of a woman who survived the Lusitania disaster. The love story is heartwarming and heartbreaking. Very good!

I received this ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Intriguing. And I say this as the book's audience feels as if it will be mostly female, yet the central character is a spoiled young man who, because of the era he was born into and class in which he was raised, is quite devoid of relating to women. He doesn't evoke a lot of empathy, is quite insufferable at times - and perhaps that is the point?

2.75 ⭐️

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC.

Bad Juliet by Giles Blunt immediately brought to mind William Styron's Sophie's Choice, and that comparison truly shaped my reading experience. While the settings differ—post-WW2 America for Styron and 1910s/1920s Saranac Lake for Blunt—the core character dynamics are strikingly similar.

Blunt presents Paul Gascoyne, a young, impressionable writer who becomes deeply involved in the tumultuous lives of an enigmatic couple. Sarah Ballard, much like Sophie, is a woman haunted by unimaginable tragedy, recovering from tuberculosis and burdened by secrets and shifting truths. Her partner, Jasper Keene, mirrors Nathan with his eccentricities, volatile moods, and intense possessiveness.

The narrative centers on Gascoyne's developing feelings for Sarah as she navigates her complex relationship with Jasper. As the trio spends time together, Gascoyne frequently plays mediator to Sarah and Jasper's dramatic highs and lows.

The story builds as Sarah's TB rapidly takes a turn for the worst, exacerbated by social events insisted on by Jasper. When Sarah’s condition worsened, Jasper disappeared, but Gascoyne and Sarah continue to meet. Sarah finally shares the rest of her story, which includes a former lover who turned out to be a violent rapist, leading to Sarah's decision to have an abortion. What I found infuriating was Gascoyne's unwavering refusal to believe her account. He insists she couldn't possibly have had a lover, been raped, or opted to terminate a pregnancy. He attempts to justify his disbelief by citing the beliefs of the time, claiming he could never fall "...in love with someone who was not a virgin, let alone a women who had terminated the spawn of a rapist, or claimed to." This was absolutely maddening, especially considering the double standard of him spending a majority of the novel trying to solve his own "virginity problem." Eventually, Gascoyne is told that finding Jasper may be the only thing that can save Sarah's rapid decline.

Gascoyne manages to locate Jasper and in a moment of surprising self-awareness, Jasper admits to being more wrong than good for Sarah acknowledging he needs to be apart from her, regardless of how much he loves her. Gascoyne returns to Sarah but never tells her that he saw Jasper. The two continue their friendship as Sarah’s health improves. Eventually the duo plan a trip to New Jersey to decide what to do with Sarah’s childhood home, but surprise surprise Gascoyne receives a note from Sarah moments before the train leaves the station that Jasper has returned and she’ll be staying there with him. Gascoyne makes the trip to New Jersey and when going through Sarah’s father’s things, he discovers that Sarah had in fact been telling the truth all along.

When Gascoyne returns to Saranac, he’s informed that Jasper is up to his old antics keeping Sarah out and breaking her doctor’s orders attempting to use nature as a cure, but most disturbing is that the pair are missing. Gascoyne makes his way to a lookout point in the woods that the trio had previously visited, and found the pair. Sarah was dead, Jasper died a few hours later in hospital. A court ruled their deaths a double suicide, but those who knew Sarah wildly disagreed with that verdict.

My Overall Impression -
All in all, this book was just okay for me. The parallels with Sophie's Choice (I actually bought a copy of Sophie's Choicehalfway through to reread because this book made me miss those characters) kept me engaged, but in the end, Sarah was the only character I genuinely liked. I found both Gascoyne and Jasper quite exhausting. While the plot had an interesting premise, the moments of overwhelming misogyny frequently pulled me out of the story. For example, Gascoyne saying “I still did not - could not - believe she had been raped. But I understood why she might say so, what would drive her to believe it. I would get over the rest of it, I knew that now, and my feelings would be all the more tender. Such as the erotic power of damaged perfection: the strand of hair falling out of place, the crack in the masterpiece, the immaculate Madonna.” Nope. No thanks. That’s really gross. (I for one, can’t blame Emily for leaving him. Lucky lady dodged a bullet as far as I’m concerned. Also him referring to her as “Dread Emily” tells me all I need to know.) At the end of the story in a reflection of his time (Gascoyne is in 1954 at this point) he does mention Rhys be was “callow, pompous, and self-involved” and misjudged people and get things wrong even when he thought he was right. So I guess that’s an attempt at a bandaid on his action through the whole book? I’m praying Blunt wrote Gascoyne to be infuriating and that this isn’t a direct reflection of his beliefs.

Oh and guess what, Sarah wasn’t lying.

Thanks to NetGalley and Dundurn Press for an early Electronic copy of 'Bad Juliet' by Giles Blunt. It is due for publication on September 02/2025. Giles Blunt is an award-winning Canadian writer, probably best known for his six thrillers featuring Detective John Cardinal and his working partner Lise Delorme, written between 2000 and 2012. I had read all of these books, some before I joined Goodreads, and they remain my top mystery series. These books were adapted into Cardinal, a TV series which aired from 2017 until 2020. It was called a landmark in Canadian TV, described as superbly made, bloody and gritty. It was viewed worldwide in 100 countries, and I discovered that some seasons are available to stream on Crave, so I have started rewatching them again. I was thrilled to receive his latest book, which promptly took its place at the top of my reading list.

The author of the Cardinal series later switched to writing literary fiction. Bad Juliet is not categorized as a mystery, but due to the characters, their personalities, and attitudes, I found it suspenseful and tense. I needed to know what would happen to them. The story centers on lies, false memories, deliberate deception, a lack of confidence, volatile emotions, illness, and the struggles of becoming a writer. It deeply examines the human condition.

Paul is an aspiring poet and fiction writer, but he feels he lacks talent. He has little experience with women and is upset because his only girlfriend jilted him. The time is the early 1900s, and World War I is occurring in Europe. Tuberculosis is a common, feared, and deadly disease. Paul moves to the Trudeau Sanatorium in the Adirondacks of upstate New York to work with patients as a teacher of literature and writing. Dr. Trudeau had founded the sanatorium, which aimed to provide a cure or comfort to TB patients by offering them plenty of rest and fresh air. Paul is attracted to Sarah, a female patient who is recovering from her illness. He learns she survived the sinking of the Lusitania when a German U-boat torpedoed it in 1915. 1193 died and 767 survived. Public opinion caused the USA to enter the war. Paul is told that Sarah married a man she met on board ship, and he and her father were killed.

Sarah does not believe she can write anything, but Paul encourages her to write a memoir, suggesting that she can add fictional elements to make it more engaging. He wants to write poetry in his spare time, but lacks confidence. He struggles to write fiction and makes little progress. To avoid boredom, the patients can study various subjects and walk in the fresh air if they are well enough. There are also stage plays and performances by notable musicians. Paul and Sarah discuss Shakespeare and decide that Sarah would make a bad Juliet because she scorns the love and sorrow that lead to Juliet's death. She contends she would never indulge in those emotions. Paul is unable to discern how much of Sarah's writing is fact and what is fictional. Some of her memoir shocks him. He finds himself falling in love with her and dreams of marriage, but is too shy to declare his feelings.

Paul and Sarah are joined by a Broadway playwright, Jasper. The three friends spend a lot of time together. Jasper is alternately kind and flattering, but then can switch to cruel words. Jasper and Paul are jealous of each other. He insisted that Sarah requires more exercise than the doctors permit. He persuades Sarah to do some strenuous climbing that even Paul finds too difficult. This results in a relapse for Sarah, and she lingers near death.
Nevertheless, she confesses to Paul that she has become obsessed with Jasper and thinks she is in love. Jasper has gone away, causing Sarah to be distraught. She does not want to live without him and pleads with Paul to search for him. He looks in NYC, and finally finds him deep in the wilderness. Jasper's trying to write his next stage play. Paul tells him Sarah will die if he doesn't return with him. Jasper ignores him. Paul visits Sarah, finding her much recovered from her near-death experience. She says she has not heard from Jasper and has lost interest in him due to his unreliability. Soon, Sarah has vanished. Where is she?

After a shocking discovery, Paul joins the military. They decided he would be better suited for espionage than for soldiering. He becomes a bestselling writer.

Recommended!