An Unexpected Guest, Anne Korkeakivi
An Unexpected Guest, Anne Korkeakivi
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An Unexpected Guest
A Novel

Author: Anne Korkeakivi

Narrator: Ellen Archer

Unabridged: 8 hr 42 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 04/17/2012


Synopsis

Clare Moorhouse, the American wife of a high-ranking diplomat in Paris, is arranging an official dinner crucial to her husband's career. As she shops for fresh stalks of asparagus and works out the menu and seating arrangements, her day is complicated by the unexpected arrival of her son and a random encounter with a Turkish man, whom she discovers is a suspected terrorist.

Like Virginia Woolf did in Mrs. Dalloway, Anne Korkeakivi brilliantly weaves the complexities of an age into an act as deceptively simple as hosting a dinner party.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Kathy on October 13, 2012

I liked this book for two reasons: the plot itself unfolds in a day's time and weaves together both present day and what happened 25 years ago in the life of the heroine. Clare Moorehouse, an American married to a high ranking, British diplomat, is charged with the unexpected preparations for a dinn......more

Goodreads review by Gale on April 03, 2012

This was a wonderful read. The backdrop of an ambassador's/expat's life is grand and so appealing. And yet it is a story of small but vital changes that a woman makes, often in midlife, when beset with circumstances outside her control. I literally wept at the end--authentic, touching, beautiful in......more

Goodreads review by Dale on October 03, 2013

I was drawn into the story from the start wondering why Clare wanted to forget Ireland existed. What had happened that she carried so much guilt? The story takes place in Paris when Clare has one day as a diplomat’s wife to pull together a dinner party crucial to her husband. If he gets the appointm......more

Goodreads review by Nancy on April 23, 2012

*** ½ I wish I knew French, as a lot of the dialogue is in French, but even without, I moved through this novel quickly and gained a greater understanding of what a diplomat’s life is like. Clare Moorhouse is the American wife of a British Minister in Paris. As she plans an important dinner party fo......more

Goodreads review by Kristin on April 30, 2012

An Unexpected Guest is a captivating, character-driven exploration of guilt and redemption, of secrets and confessions, written with a style that’s as elegant as its posh Parisian setting. Read the full review at [URL not allowed]......more


Quotes

"Anne Korkeakivi's writing has all the best qualities of an Ishiguro novel. Clare, a seemingly selfless diplomat's wife, the epitome of restraint and hermetic detachment, unravels before us into a woman of dangerous allegiances, passions, and moral dilemmas, in prose that is both beautiful and razor sharp. Paris is depicted with subtle complexity, a city that reposes as it threatens, full of scorn and grace. Korkeakivi's sense of detail is remarkable while grounded in authenticity. An Unexpected Guest is a feast of a novel."—George Hagen, author of The Laments

"A taut tender suspenseful novel, delicately told."—Fernanda Eberstadt, author of Rat and The Furies

"Anne Korkeakivi writes wonderfully about embassy manners, food, and Paris, and she writes even better about the darker world that threatens to disrupt not just Clare's seating plan for dinner but her entire life. An Unexpected Guest, like its heroine, is a novel of great elegance, enormous surprises, and unexpected depths."—Margot Livesey, author of The House on Fortune Street

"Anne Korkeakivi knows her expat life as well as the protocol of diplomacy-from the flowers and trees and markets of Paris to the meetings behind closed doors. Clare is an observant, intelligent woman whose elegant existence includes endless dinner arrangements, to-do lists, and the necessity of irreproachable behavior. Yet she has a secret that seems destined to burst and shatter her comfortable life and that of her family. An Unexpected Guest will draw you in and keep you breathlessly turning pages, even as you admire its intelligence and fine writing."—Thomas E. Kennedy, author of In the Company of Angels and Falling Sideways

"An Unexpected Guest is a lovingly detailed account of a day in the life of the wife of a British diplomat in Paris. But what a day! She deals with protocol, place settings and a temperamental cook and at the same time a troubled son, an Irish complication, and a suspected Turkish terrorist. Virginia Woolf meets Eric Ambler - and readers meet a charming heroine who rises to all occasions."—John Casey, National Book Award-winning author of Spartina and Compass Rose:

"Korkeakivi creates a Paris as crisp and unruffled as her heroine--and just as likely to surprise."—Elizabeth Bard, author of Lunch in Paris: A Love Story with Recipes

"Deep private tension animates the perfect ambassador's wife as she manages one of the most important days of her husband's career, the complexities of her surprising past converging rapidly upon the present where an entire emotional life is balancing on a delicate, invisible wire. A beautifully written novel about living with our many selves. "—Nicola Keegan, author of Swimming