Her (Lane)

Her 
Harriet Lane, 2015
Litte, Brown and Company
272 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780316369879


Summary
You don't remember her—but she remembers you.

Two different women; two different worlds. On the face of it, Emma and Nina have very little in common. Isolated and exhausted by early motherhood, Emma finds her confidence is fading fast. Nina is sophisticated and assured, a successful artist who seems to have it all under control.

And yet, when the two women meet, they are irresistibly drawn to each other. As the friendship develops, as Emma gratefully invites Nina into her life, it emerges that someone is playing games-and the stakes could not be higher.

What, exactly, does Nina see in Emma? What does she want? And how far will she go in pursuit of it?

A gripping novel about friendship and identity, about the wild hopes and worst fears of parenthood, about the small and easily forgotten moments that come to define a life, Her is unputdownable—compelling and hauntingly discomfiting. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
Harriet Lane is the British author of Alys, Always (2012) and Her (2015). Previously, she worked as an editor and staff writer at Tatler and the Observer. She also has written for the Guardian, Telegraph and Vogue. After an autoimmune disorder began to impair her eyesight, Lane gave up her full-time career in journalism and eventually took up fiction writing. She lives in north London. (Adapted fom the publisher.)

Book Reviews
The action in this icicle-sharp British chiller kicks in with an act of civic kindness: A stranger returns a dropped wallet to its owner. Unbeknown to the grateful recipient, an overwhelmed homemaker and toddler’s mom named Emma, the wallet was not in fact mislaid. What’s more, Emma shares a distant history with the well-heeled and effortlessly urbane good Samaritan, Nina, which apparently only Nina recalls..... This is psychological bait-and-switchery to put on the shelf alongside Patricia Highsmith and Georges Simenon.
Jan Stuart - New York Times Book Review


A small jewel of a suspense novel.
Sherryl Connelly - New York Daily News


Lane does motherhood noir-the noir of nurseries with nightlights and tense twilit bedrooms-as well as anybody.
Marion Winik - Newsday


Keeps the reader perpetually on edge.
Kevin Nance - Chicago Tribune


Harriet Lane is a fantastic writer.... Her thrives in its psychological investigations. The cost of the past, the way we tell stories, and the fascinating power dynamics, resentments, memories and fleeting hopes of these women as they negotiate their lives is wonderfully executed.
Jennifer Gilmore - Los Angeles Times


Her takes a deep dive into the nature of domesticity and asks what womanhood and motherhood mean to the modern woman. What is demanded of them? What do they want for themselves? How does female friendship come into the fore?
Brooke Wylie - San Francisco Examiner


A thrilling, chilling tale.... Lane's keen eye for the intricacies of female relationships - the confidences and competition that so often co-exist in them, for better and worse - extends to the mother-daughter bond, as complicated here as it is inextricable.... The final, heart-stopping sequence in HER juxtaposes a mother's love and fear with a daughter's displaced sense of betrayal and rage. What binds Nina and Emma in the end is desperation, a quality that pulses just beneath Lane's measured, nuanced writing until it slaps us—as it does Emma—in the face, leaving us breathless.
Elysa Gardner - USA Today


[Harriet Lane's] cornered the market when it comes to unassuming but distinctly dangerous, creepy female protagonists….As seductive as it is chilling, Her is quality literary fiction meets psychological thriller.
Guardian (UK)


A taught revenge drama….the endgame, when it comes, is shattering.
Independent (UK)


Lane's writing is always careful and elegant, loaded with significance and often beautiful. Lane follows her debut, Alys, Always, with a gracefully written psychological thriller about friendship wielded as a weapon.
Telegraph (UK)


If you're looking to jump-start the year with a page-turner, Her is your book.
Megan Angelo - Glamour


Affluent artist Nina Bremner glimpses a lovely but disheveled pregnant woman shopping with a toddler one day and experiences a shock of recognition. She once knew Emma Nash—and her hatred for the other woman simmers, though it’s not clear why.... [S]ubtle, deliberate, chillingly effective, and hauntingly sad.
Publishers Weekly


On the surface, Nina Bremner's life seems enviable.... But her ease is set disrupted when she recognizes a woman she knew as a teenager on her street.... [T]he overall creepy factor is high—a tense read for fans of the intellectual psychological thriller. —Devon Thomas, Chelsea, MI
Library Journal


(Starred review.) [T]aut, fraught tale..... With chilling precision, Lane narrates the re-entwining of...two women's lives through domestic details. Afternoon teas, disastrous shopping trips, cluttered homes and even well-populated playgrounds begin to seep with danger.... A domestic thriller of the first order.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:

• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)

(We'll add specific questions if and when they're made available by the publisher. In the meantime, use our generic mystery questions.)

GENERIC QUESTIONS
Mystery / Crime / Suspense Thrillers

1. Talk about the characters, both good and bad. Describe their personalities and motivations. Are they fully developed and emotionally complex? Or are they more one-dimensional heroes and villains?

2. What do you know...and when do you know it? At what point in the book do you, the reader, begin to piece together what happened?

3. Good crime writers are skillful at hiding clues in plain sight. How well does the author hide the clues in this work?

4. Does the author use red-herrings—false clues—to purposely lead readers astray?

5. Talk about plot's twists & turns—those surprising developments that throw everything you think you've figured out into disarray. Do they enhance the story, add complexity, and build suspense? Are they  plausible? Or do the twists & turns feel forced and preposterous—inserted only to extend the story.

6. Does the author ratchet up the story's suspense? Did you find yourself anxious—quickly turning pages to learn what happened? How does the author build suspense?

7. What about the ending—is it satisfying? Is it probable or believable? Does it grow out of clues previously laid out by the author (see Question 2). Or does the ending come out of the blue? Does it feel forced...tacked-on...or a cop-out? Or perhaps it's too predictable. Can you envision a better, or different, ending?

8. Are there certain passages in the book—ideas, descriptions, or dialogue—that you found interesting or revealing...or that somehow struck you? What lines, if any, made you stop and think?

9. Overall, does the book satisfy? Does it live up to the standards of a good crime story or suspense thriller? Why or why not?

(Generic Mystery Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)

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