• Home
• Events
• J Courtney Sullivan

J. Courtney Sullivan - 'The Cliffs' Book Talk at Cliff House Maine

J. Courtney Sullivan, the New York Times best-selling author of Maine and The Engagements, will be at Cliff House on September 5th to discuss her most recent novel, The Cliffs, which takes place in the fictional Maine town of Awadapquit, inspired by Cliff House's neighboring town of Ogunquit.

The event will begin at 3:30 PM with a 'mix and mingle' reception, where guests can enjoy prosecco and light snacks while chatting with the author. Following the reception, Sullivan will give a talk about her novel in conversation with Meg Mitchell Moore, best-selling author of Vacationland.

Copies of the book will be available to purchase along with the chance to have your copy signed by the author following the book talk.

'The Cliffs' by J. Courtney Sullivan On a secluded bluff overlooking the ocean sits a Victorian house, lavender with gingerbread trim, a home that contains a century’s worth of secrets. By the time Jane Flanagan discovers the house as a teenager, it has long been abandoned. The place is an irresistible mystery to Jane. There are still clothes in the closets, marbles rolling across the floors, and dishes in the cupboards, even though no one has set foot there in decades. The house becomes a hideaway for Jane, a place to escape her volatile mother.

Twenty years later, now a Harvard archivist, she returns home to Maine following a terrible mistake that threatens both her career and her marriage. Jane is horrified to find the Victorian is now barely recognizable. The new owner, Genevieve, a summer person from Beacon Hill, has gutted it, transforming the house into a glossy white monstrosity straight out of a shelter magazine. Strangely, Genevieve is convinced that the house is haunted—perhaps the product of something troubling Genevieve herself has done. She hires Jane to research the history of the place and the women who lived there. The story Jane uncovers—of lovers lost at sea, romantic longing, shattering loss, artistic awakening, historical artifacts stolen and sold, and the long shadow of colonialism—is even older than Maine itself.

Enthralling, richly imagined, filled with psychic mediums and charlatans, spirits and past lives, mothers, marriage, and the legacy of alcoholism, this is a deeply moving novel about the land we inhabit, the women who came before us, and the ways in which none of us will ever truly leave this earth.

About the Author: J. Courtney Sullivan J. Courtney Sullivan is the New York Times best-selling author of the novels Commencement, Maine, The Engagements, Saints for All Occasions, and Friends and Strangers. Her work has been translated into seventeen languages. Sullivan’s writing has appeared in The New York Times Book Review, The Washington Post, the Chicago Tribune, New York, Real Simple, and O: The Magazine, among many other publications. In 2017, she wrote the forewords to new editions of two of her favorite classic novels– Anne of Green Gables and Little Women. She lives in Massachusetts with her husband and two children.

About the Moderator: Meg Mitchell Moore Meg Mitchell Moore’s ninth novel, Mansion Beach, will be out in the summer of 2025. She lives in Newburyport, Mass., with her husband, three teen and young adult daughters, and two exuberantly shedding golden retrievers.

3:30 PM - 5:30 PM