I picked this one up on a whim at the library because the blurb sounded like it could be interesting.
Set in two time periods - the present and the late 1980s - the book is interspersed with pieces from a fine art catalogue describing a series of artworks that may or may not be on display somewhere.
In 1988 a group of artists gather at a camp in the Maine woods to focus on their craft. The idyllic location turns nightmarish as secrets pile up and a woman's dead body is left among the trees as the witnesses to her demise scramble to safety.
In the present day Max Durant, a fading artist well past his days of glory is teaching at a Boston university. He's frustrated with his lack of success and excited by one of his new students, a brilliant but aloof artist called Audra. She's invited him to her home for the weekend so he can see the pieces she hopes will make up her thesis.
The idyllic weekend he expects turns sinister when he realizes he's close to a place he's been trying to forget for years. And everywhere he turns during this weekend, he seems to be reminded of it.
I think I would have enjoyed this book much more if I hadn't figured out the twists so early on. I figured out the links between the two time periods and the different characters within the first couple of switches between 1988 and the present. So from then on, I was basically just reading to make sure I got it right. And I did. The only thing that was a small surprise was the modern day identity of one of the characters from the 1988 section.
I did enjoy the revenge plot and how beautifully Audra orchestrated every move to ensure Max's sense of discomfort grew throughout his visit. I love it when smart women best smart men who think they're way smarter than they actually are. I just wish the author hadn't telegraphed so much early on....
I'd recommend this if you're interested in art and the art world, or if you like revenge stories in which women get the better of men.
But don't just listen to me. Here's the blurb:
A psychological thriller for fans of Lucy Foley and Liz Moore, Dark Things I Adore is a stunning Gone Girl-esque tale of atonement that proves that in the grasp of manipulative men, women may momentarily fall. But in the hands of fierce women, men will be brought to their knees.Three campfire secrets. Two witnesses. One dead in the trees. And the woman, thirty years later, bent on making the guilty finally pay.
1988. A group of outcasts gather at a small, prestigious arts camp nestled in the Maine woods. They're the painters: bright, hopeful, teeming with potential. But secrets and dark ambitions rise like smoke from a campfire, and the truths they tell will come back to haunt them in ways more deadly than they dreamed.
2018. Esteemed art professor Max Durant arrives at his protégé's remote home to view her graduate thesis collection. He knows Audra is beautiful and brilliant. He knows being invited into her private world is a rare gift. But he doesn't know that Audra has engineered every aspect of their weekend together. Every detail, every conversation. Audra has woven the perfect web.
Only Audra knows what happened that summer in 1988. Max's secret, and the dark things that followed. And even though it won't be easy, Audra knows someone must pay.
A searing thriller of trauma, dark academia, complicity, and revenge, Dark Things I Adore unravels the realities behind campfire legends―the horrors that happen in the dark, the girls who become cautionary tales, and the guilty who go unpunished. Until now.
