The Guest : A Novel

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • What does it take for an outsider to get in, for a young woman on the edge to survive, to belong?

“[A] smoldering thriller that explores desire and deception.”—The Washington Post


“Every sentence as sharp as a scalpel, a woman toeing the line between welcome and unwelcome guest becomes a fully destabilizing force.”— The New York Times

In this "eerily captivating" (Elle) novel, a young woman with few resources but gifted with a dangerous ability to navigate the desires of others, seeks to make a place for herself in a closed, rarefied world.

Summer is coming to an end on the East End of Long Island, and a misstep at a dinner party leads Alex to be dismissed by the older man she's been staying with. Guided by a mutable sense of morality, she stays on Long Island, moving like a ghost through the beautiful hedged lanes, gated driveways, and sun-blasted dunes, a cipher leaving destruction in her wake.

Taut, propulsive, and impossible to look away from, Emma Cline’s The Guest is a brilliant literary achievement.

Story Locale:Long Island, NY