The Cliffs

By J. Courtney Sullivan
** Publication Date 2 July 2024 **

4.75 stars / This review will be posted on goodreads.com today. 

J. Courtney Sullivan’s novels transport you to different times and places. The Cliffs takes place in a small tourist hamlet in Maine, a spot where the cliffs jut out into the ocean. The place is called Awadapaquit. Once inhabited by Native Americans, eventually became a land of Englishman and eventually Americans. But the Native American history is strong. As are the spirits.

Jane Flanagan is an archivist at the prestigious Schlesinger Library at Harvard. She specializes in women’s history. When her own mother is dying, Jane goes home to Awadapaquit to help put her mother to rest. After all, this was Jane’s home as well. Jane never suspects that she will eventually come home to reside here permanently.
Jane’s husband David is faithful and loving to a fault. But after her mother’s death, Jane kind of goes off the deep end drinking. Her mother was an alcoholic. Likely her sister Holly is as well, but Jane’s never thought of herself as having a drinking problem. Until she manages to drink herself into a blackout and change the course of her life.

Add in the history of the Lake Grove Inn, an abandoned home on the cliffs, which housed a lot of women over the years. Their stories get woven into Jane’s. A medium named Clementine who relays information that propels Jane to find out more about not only her history, but the history of the Lake Grove Inn and its inhabitants. This novel is layered with depth and history. 

I loved this. I loved every step of the journey from Hannah Littleton, one of the original inhabitants of the Lake Grove Inn, to Kanti, one of the original tribe that made what was once called Sawadapskw’i their home. So much to learn about the Native Americans. The horrible history of what the new settlers did to force them off their land. About the ghostly people that still roam some of these Native lands - not all of them Native.

The Cliffs will keep you riveted and engrossed in the women of Maine, past & present. I cannot recommend this book enough.