The Absolutes by Molly Dektar is Now Live!

The Absolutes

Author: Molly Dektar

Release Date: July 11, 2023

Publisher: HarperCollins

Genre: Fiction/Suspense/Contemporary

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A moving, suspenseful, beautifully atmospheric novel about a young woman's affair with an Italian aristocrat that leaves her spiraling in the face of love, danger, and obsession.

When Nora, an anxious and withdrawn American teenager, is sent to live with relatives in Turin, she meets Nicola, the enigmatic son of the most powerful aristocratic family in Italy. They forge a sudden, powerful connection in a chairlift several hundred feet above the Alps, where Nicola, brimming with old-world wealth and secrets, eases Nora back from the verge of a panic attack. In an instant, Nora forgets the feelings she's been harboring for her host sister since arriving in Italy, and a sharper, more reckless feeling takes hold: blind trust and insatiable desire for Nicola.

Years later in New York, when Nicola becomes enmeshed in a covert, high-stakes business venture at the company where Nora works, the two begin an affair. But Nora is unprepared for the consequences of their attraction, when unrelenting currents of obsession, control, and revenge intensify their passion and entangle her in a secret plot to overthrow Nicola's corrupt father. Soon, she must decide for herself what makes a person truly evil and what she's willing to excuse for a chance at total intimacy.

Utterly seductive, fiercely intelligent, and achingly beautiful, The Absolutes is a revealing portrait of a relationship that is as intoxicating as it is disquieting. Molly Dektar has crafted a hypnotic, provocative, and profound study of desire.

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Molly Dektar

Molly Dektar is from North Carolina and lives in Brooklyn. The Ash Family (Simon and Schuster, 2019) is her first novel. Her second novel, The Absolutes, is forthcoming from Mariner in 2023.

Learn more about this author here:  https://www.mollydektar.com/

Nora is young, fearless, and ready to explore what Italy has to offer... and she definitely finds far more than she bargained for. When she meets an older aristocrat, she instantly becomes enamored by him, and with each encounter they have the deeper her obsession with him grows. She wants him for herself and will take him any way she can have him... even if it means being treated poorly. Nicola is a dangerous man that comes from an even more dangerous world and she has no idea what she has just gotten herself into...

The Absolutes is a mesmerizing and suspenseful tale of a young woman who wanders into a dangerous world and falls completely prey to it... to the point of losing herself. Watching Nora fall for Nicola and become so utterly obsessed with him was downright disturbing at times and her innocence was also a bit frustrating too. She completely allowed him to walk all over her, take what he wanted, and never really asked for anything in return or stood up for herself. She was lost to him and it broke my heart to see her settle for it. It took me a while to wrap my head around her obsession and lengths she went to, but in the end everything fell right into place and made perfect sense.

This read had me straying a bit from my norm, it pushed boundaries, made me uncomfortable, and had me shaking my head more than a few times. Don't get me wrong I enjoyed it, it just left me rattled in a way I haven't gotten over yet. I would suggest it to those who enjoy their reads dark in nature... as Nora's world is definitely a dark and dangerous one that requires some bravery to enter! Highly recommend!

I requested an advanced copy of this title from the publisher, and I am voluntarily leaving my honest and unbiased opinion.