The Hidden Hours

September 28, 2020
In this perceptive coming-of-age tale from Foster (Beneath the Shadows), 21-year-old Eleanor Brennan is three weeks into her job as a temporary personal assistant at Parker & Lane, London’s premier children’s book publisher, when Arabella Lane’s body is found in the Thames. During the firm’s holiday party the night before, she and Arabella shared drinks and a long talk before Arabella slapped her hot-tempered husband, Nathan, who’s also Eleanor’s boss, then stormed out of the party. Eleanor, who can’t remember what happened after the party, becomes mired in the subsequent investigation, and the death brings back Eleanor’s memories of a violent incident that destroyed her family when she was a child in Australia. The sophisticated plot spins on corporate gossip, family betrayal, and the effect on children of being forced to keep their parents’ secrets. The naive Eleanor develops into an insightful young woman who comes to understand how multifaceted people can be. Fans of character-driven mysteries will be rewarded. Agent: Tara Wynne, Curtis Brown (U.K.).

October 1, 2020
This absorbing psychological thriller focuses on Eleanor, who had a traumatic childhood in Australia. When she turned 21, Eleanor left Australia to try to escape her memories, heading to London to stay with her uncle and his family. She's given a temp job working for a VP at her aunt's publishing firm but finds it difficult to make friends. The annual Christmas party seems a good opportunity to meet people, and she even chats with Arabella Lane, her boss' wife. But after Arabella's body is found floating in the Thames the next morning, Eleanor, with no memory of what happened after the party, is terrified she played a role in Arabella's death. What starts like a murder mystery shifts into an examination of the consequences of loneliness, rejection, and despair, as readers gradually find out?in a series of riveting flashbacks?why Eleanor is so traumatized by her past. A gripping read with a heroine who is both a frustrating and an empathetic character. No revelatory ending, but a fascinating character study.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)

February 28, 2017
Arabella Lane is a beautiful, successful publishing executive whose body is found in the Thames following the office Christmas party. The last person to see Arabella alive is Eleanor, who has escaped a traumatic childhood in outback Australia and moved to London to work as a temp for her aunt’s publishing house. Was Arabella pushed or did she jump? Only Eleanor holds the answers, but she has no memory of what happened in the hours leading up to Arabella’s suspicious death. With this premise, Sara Foster has created a suspenseful and well-paced tale, satisfying the reader’s curiosity in teasing increments. In attempting to retrieve her lost memories, Arabella navigates her past, her new life in London and her secretive British family. The Hidden Hours shifts effortlessly between the past and the present in a tautly structured novel that explores themes of guilt, despair and loneliness. At times the prose is slightly overwrought, but as the book progresses, Foster’s increasingly deft writing and plotting pull you into the story. The Hidden Hours will appeal to readers of Foster’s previous novels (Come Back to Me, Beneath the Shadows and Shallow Breath) and crime lovers in general, as well as fans of authors of domestic psychological novels such as Liane Moriarty. Deborah Crabtree is a Melbourne-based writer and bookseller