r/readwithme • u/Tackle-General • 2d ago
Mystery/Thriller 🫆 The beginning of The Likeness by Tana French takes my breath away.
This prologue.

"Some nights, if I'm sleeping on my own, I still dream about Whitehorn House...the house is always empty. The bedroom are bare and bright, only my footsteps echoing off the floorboards, circling up through the sun and the dust motes to the high ceilings...in the sitting room the piano is open, wood glowing chestnut and almost too bright to look at in the bars of sun, the breeze stirring the yellowed sheet music like a finger. The table is laid ready for us, five settings—the bone-china plates and the long-stemed wineglasses, fresh-cut honeysuckle trailing from a crystal bowl—but the silverware has gone dim with tarnish and the heavy damask napkins are frilled with dust. Daniel's cigarette case lies by his place at the head of the table, open and empty except for a burnt-down match. Somewhere in the house, faint as a fingernail-flick at the edge of my hearing, there are sounds: a scuffle, whispers. It almost stops my heart. The others aren't gone, I got it all wrong somehow. They're only hiding; they're still here, for ever and ever." —Tana French, The Likeness
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u/hermit_onthe_moon 2d ago
The premise of this was so preposterous, but her writing kept me hooked and locked in. She’s magical in that way.
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u/Tackle-General 1d ago
I keep hearing that. It does seem that often writers that are good at writing (voice), sometimes have preposterous premises or glaring plot issues. And the writers that have locked in plot but no voice are not worth reading. The marriage of the two is a rare jewel.
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u/NotYourShitAgain 2d ago
Tana rules. And the bbc series is pretty damn good.
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u/AutomaticPlace7994 2d ago
Wait what?? I've read The Likeness a hundred times, never realized there's a series...! Is it based on the Dublin Murder Squad books in general?
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u/AmbitiousSquare8222 2d ago
I recently started listening to the audiobook and knew I wasn't really understanding the prologue. Now, it makes sense!
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