Dead Letters

Starred review from January 16, 2017
When news of Zelda Antipova’s death reaches her buttoned-down twin sister, Ava, the latter returns home to her family’s central New York vineyard from Paris. She helps her ailing mother and estranged father with funeral arrangements, yet Ava is suspicious of her townie sister’s supposed demise in a barn fire, and it isn’t long before she begins to receive email messages from Zelda, who claims to have faked her own death. Following a series of clues left by Zelda, Ava begins to piece together her sister’s troubles, from massive debt to drug addiction. Along with her old high school boyfriend, Wyatt, she immerses herself in Zelda’s world, hoping to find her sister at the end of the puzzle. Dolan-Leach’s debut is a smart, dazzling mystery with a twist that not only shines a new light on the novel’s title but also leaves the reader hunting for the next clue. Dolan-Leach revels in toying with both Ava and her audience, placing small hints and red herrings throughout her text, and the result is captivating.

December 15, 2016
No one knows Zelda Antipova better than her identical twin. So Ava is naturally suspicious when she hears Zelda has burned to death in their barn--just the kind of death she would have planned herself. Ava leaves her home in Paris, her boyfriend, and her doctoral research on Edgar Allan Poe and the OuLiPo movement--writers obsessed with mysteries and literary games--to pick up the pieces of her family in the Finger Lakes region of New York. The Antipova family is not known for keeping their acts together, what with their faltering vineyard and the alcoholism riddling the veins of every member, not to mention the dementia that keeps Nadine, Ava and Zelda's mother, housebound, drunk, and popping pills. Marlon, the twins' father and Nadine's ex, has dutifully arrived as well, leaving his new family behind at his own, successful, vineyard. Despite having been absent for the past two years after a falling-out with her sister over Wyatt--her high school love, who pined long enough for relationship-shy Ava to fall briefly into flamboyant Zelda's arms--Ava falls back into old habits, toying with Wyatt and swilling wine with her family. While searching Zelda's Airstream trailer (conveniently located on the family property but far enough from the crumbling manse for a little privacy), however, Ava discovers a burner phone that Zelda left behind, and soon she's getting messages from beyond the grave via email, newspaper, Facebook, and Instagram. Perhaps Zelda's not dead after all, and she's set up an elaborate game for her beloved Ava, a heroine rich with wry, self-deprecating insights. But as she plays her sister's game, she comes face to face with raw, harrowing reality. In this, her startling debut novel, Dolan-Leach nimbly entwines the clever mystery of Agatha Christie, the wit of Dorothy Parker, and the inebriated Gothic of Eugene O'Neill. A sharp, wrenching tale of the true love only twins know.

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February 1, 2017
Though their initials put them at opposite ends of the alphabet, Ava and Zelda Antipova could not be closer. Who else knows Zelda's hiding spots? Who else can understand Ava's need to conform? When Zelda's remains are found in a fire on the grounds of the family's winery in upstate New York, Ava returns from graduate school in Paris to uncover the mystery behind her twin sister's death, a puzzle made more complicated as emails appear out of the cyber ether directing Ava on a cat-and-mouse chase that delves into the family's darkest secrets. Guilt, remorse, lies, recriminations follow. Zelda plays Ava like a finely tuned instrument, even after Ava realizes just how diabolically she's being manipulated. With her mother's dementia growing more pronounced, and her father's physical and emotional distance a barrier, Ava enlists Wyatt, the love of her, and of Zelda's life, to separate myth from reality. Considering questions of identity, loyalty, and reliance, Dolan-Leach's tautly crafted crime debut will resonate with fans of Gillian Flynn's and Paula Hawkins' domestic psychological thrillers.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)

October 15, 2016

In this exemplar of literary suspense, Ava Antipova is suspicious when she learns that Zelda, the volatile twin sister from whom she's estranged, reputedly died in a barn fire. No wonder: soon she's following emails from Zelda to figure out what has happened to her. A debut novel with great writing and lots of in-house love.

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from December 1, 2016

Ava Antipova can't believe that her twin sister, Zelda, is dead. Twenty months after fleeing to Paris, Ava is stunned by news that Zelda died in a barn fire on the family's failing vineyard in Upstate New York; but ambitious Ava--Zelda was the messy and impulsive one--never felt the loss of her twin. So Ava returns to her family home and to her divorced mother, Nadine, whose alcoholism and dementia continually worsen. She also comes back to memories of betrayal involving her sister and her first love, Wyatt Darling, which was a factor in causing her to leave. Then an email from Zelda starts Ava on an alphabetical puzzle to discover not only Zelda's whereabouts but also truths about herself. VERDICT Dolan-Leach's fiction debut is a compelling mystery with only hints of murder (because the barn doors were chained shut from the outside) that centers on family and particularly on the power of genetics, sisterhood, and loss. A story as compassionate and insightful as it is riveting. [See Prepub Alert, 9/26/16.]--Michele Leber, Arlington, VA

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

December 1, 2016

Ava Antipova can't believe that her twin sister, Zelda, is dead. Twenty months after fleeing to Paris, Ava is stunned by news that Zelda died in a barn fire on the family's failing vineyard in Upstate New York; but ambitious Ava--Zelda was the messy and impulsive one--never felt the loss of her twin. So Ava returns to her family home and to her divorced mother, Nadine, whose alcoholism and dementia continually worsen. She also comes back to memories of betrayal involving her sister and her first love, Wyatt Darling, which was a factor in causing her to leave. Then an email from Zelda starts Ava on an alphabetical puzzle to discover not only Zelda's whereabouts but also truths about herself. VERDICT Dolan-Leach's fiction debut is a compelling mystery with only hints of murder (because the barn doors were chained shut from the outside) that centers on family and particularly on the power of genetics, sisterhood, and loss. A story as compassionate and insightful as it is riveting. [See Prepub Alert, 9/26/16.]--Michele Leber, Arlington, VA

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from April 3, 2017
Actor Marie provides a pitch-perfect reading of this twisted tale set on a vineyard in central New York. After the death of her twin sister Zelda, Ava Antipova returns home to everything she was trying to escape: a failing family business, a mother slowly sinking into dementia and alcoholism, an emotionally distant father who had abandoned the family, and a complicated relationship with an old beau. Following a series of clues left by Zelda, Ava begins to piece together her sister’s troubles, from massive debt to drug addiction. When reading Ava’s first-person narration, Marie moves the plot along while fully inhabiting both the melancholy and resolve of a grieving sister determined to uncover the mysterious circumstances surrounding her sibling’s supposed death. When reading Zelda’s e-mails, she uses an upbeat, almost taunting style of delivery. The balance between the two sisters and their respective narrative devices will keep listeners utterly captivated from beginning to end. A Random House hardcover.