She was taught to decipher what lies behind the words. Now it is the words that are attempting to kill her. Until one of her misjudgments ruined a life and devastated her career, Dr. Iris Vance was the FBI's best forensic linguist. She teaches bored undergraduates, drinks a lot of whiskey to cover up her feelings of guilt, and takes on humbling jobs that no one else would want. She knows that she will never be trusted with a real case again. A seemingly impossible offer comes along. Eamon Roy is a famous novelist whose last manuscript has been found, even though he disappeared 30 years ago and never published again. They must have Iris verify that it is true or else a fortune will not be exchanged. It's a standard job, an impossibly large fee, and a lot of electric pages. It should be her deliverance! While Iris is reading through the manuscript, her forensic eye detects something others don't. It's a lushly written story, cloaked in verb tenses, punctuation arcana, and other narrative devices, and there's a secret involved. Roy was no writer of fiction. He described real women, disappeared in the late 80s, whose cases he studied as a youngster, and whose unsolved files continually haunted him. The information is super-specific. Too intimate. One of the missing girls is Iris's own sister! Someone will do everything to maintain the truth in the text. When Iris traces the linguistic trail, though, she discovers the manuscript is not quite what it seems: it's a coded conversation between predator and protector, and Iris finds herself a character in their narrative. Before the final period of the sentence turns into her own epitaph, Iris has to crack the most deadly sentence ever written – to discover the fate of her sister and to restore her own broken life. A masterfully intelligent, page-whipping thriller that has you questioning every word you read, The Last True Sentence is a novel in which language is a weapon and a crime scene.

She visited Monaco for self discovery. She didn't think that she would lose it all. Elena is the ideal girl. A secure job, a devoted boyfriend, and a life, carefully mapped out and planned until the end. On a solo vacation in Monaco, however, she is on a search for glamour, and she's running from the comfortable feeling of love that's more like a routine than a romance. After that she meets Luca. Luca is a historian with an old soul who is quiet, she doesn't show her the Monaco of casinos and superyachts. He uncovers its soul, its hidden gardens, old bakery, and observatories star studded, where time stands still. Chivalrous, intelligent, and magnetic, his charm awakens something in Elena that she had never thought to recover. The beginning of an innocent tour turns into an intimate unraveling. All the looks, all the touches, all the talk, getting deeper than her previous talks with the boyfriend, smudges the lines of loyalty. Elena comes home – but she doesn't really leave Monaco. It's like her cocoon is now a cage, because of her relationship with Mark. Then the letters start, With a fountain pen on parchment, Luca writes her tender, poetic words, with a dangerous promise. With each secret reply, more and more she falls deeper into a fantasy that she cannot deny. The intellectual and emotional romance takes over her and as Mark becomes suspicious. The choice is hers to make: Will she accept the predictable and secure life she's always lived or take the risk of her life with a man who isn't real and only exists in her mind and on paper? However, Luca has made her an offer. A date. A place. A final decision. With New Year's Eve just around the corner, Elena has to decide which of the two men to go with, but with a terrible secret threatening to tear her apart, she can't make her choice. She's going to have to decide between who she is and who she wants to be. She could lose her marriage with just one letter. This will be her choice, and it has the potential to change her life forever. One trip to Monaco and she could have had all of her dreams and she may have had all that she never knew she needed. The Geography of Longing is an electrifying tale of emotional betrayal, self-knowledge and what to do when you meet the right person at the wrong time.