Six years have passed since Jake Fisher watched Natalie, the love of his life, marry another man. Six years of hiding a broken heart by throwing himself into his career as a college professor. Six years of keeping his promise to leave Natalie alone, and six years of tortured dreams of her life with her new husband, Todd.
But six years haven’t come close to extinguishing his feelings, and when Jake comes across Todd’s obituary, he can’t keep himself away from the funeral. There he gets the glimpse of Todd’s wife he’s hoping for…but she is not Natalie. Whoever the mourning widow is, she’s been married to Todd for almost two decades, and with that fact everything Jake thought he knew about the best time of his life—a time he has never gotten over—is turned completely inside out.
As Jake searches for the truth, his picture-perfect memories of Natalie begin to unravel. Mutual friends of the couple either can’t be found, or don’t remember Jake. No one has seen Natalie in years. Jake’s search for the woman who broke his heart, who lied to him, soon puts his very life at risk as it dawns on him that the man he has become may be based on a carefully constructed fiction.
Harlan Coben once again delivers a shocking page-turner that deftly explores the power of past love, and the secrets and lies that such love can hide.
Man, 2013 has been a great year for new releases and new (to me) authors so far!
I received Six Years as a review request from the publisher Dutton Books. I am about to admit something I am a little ashamed about now but we are all family here, right? Ok, here goes…
I thought Harlan Coben was a new, unheard of, up and coming author…
I KNOW, RIGHT?!?!?!?!?!
I finished the book this morning and spent the first hour at work raving to my co-worker/fellow bookworm about how great Six Years was. I even told her that I had never heard of Harlan Coben but I would definitely be following his career.
And then I looked him up…
Yeah, I’m an idiot. Turns out, Harlan Coben has not only been around for a good long while but he’s also a HIGHLY successful mystery/suspense writer. You cant see me right now but I am shaking my head at myself.
Anyway…
Six Years was absolutely GRIPPING. I tore through this book in no time flat. Right out of the gate, I was hooked by the tragic lost love story and the moment things started going screwy (which is not at all far into the book), I was burning through the pages, desperate to figure out the puzzle.
And here’s the great part: I didn’t figure it out until the very end when the big reveal happened. As the reveal was happening, all of the final pieces fell into place.
Something I am seeing less and less in the mystery/suspense genre is a good story line that is also not predictable. All the way through Six Years, every time I was sure I knew where the story was going, the story would shift gears and take a turn I was totally not expecting. I was SURE I had the end game nailed down about half way through the book and I was so incredibly wrong. Every theory I formed was shattered into a thousand pieces. I just could not get ahead of this story. THAT is a well-written mystery!
My only hang up with this book is there was a lot of repetition of details as the main character attempted to unravel the mystery. I found that those moments slowed the pace of the book in spots. This book has such a strong forward momentum from the start that the slow spots are slightly distracting. However, the rest of the book is so good that it wasn’t anything that would ever make me want to put the book down. It was distracting but not frustrating.
I am going to give Six Years 4.5 stars. This was an incredibly fast-paced read with an intriguing story line and enough twists and turns to keep you guessing almost all the way to the last page!
CLICK HERE TO GET YOUR COPY OF SIX YEARS!
He is one of my favorite authors..a lot of what you just wrote about this book could be written about any one of his books because they are all so well written and I never can put them down. Great review!
A colleague was taking about Harlan Coben yesterday; another book to add to my must read pile. Thanks Jena!
And now the really great thing for you is that you get to read all the other books he wrote, and you don’t have to wait a year between each one. I’ve been reading coben books for eight years, but there were a lot of books he already wrote then, too. I was quite happy of that.