Beyond the Pale Motel

July 21, 2014
In this fast-paced, if shallow, erotic thriller from Block (The Elementals), L.A. hair stylist Catt struggles with alcoholism and with the departure of her husband, Dash, who leaves her for “starlet du jour” Darcy London. Meanwhile, a serial killer is dismembering women in Hollywood. Within a month, Catt hooks up with her godson Skylar’s baseball coach, Jarell Hardin; Carlton, a Canadian artist she meets on an Internet dating service called FU Cupid; and even with Dash’s brother, Cyan Berns. Each encounter proves unsatisfactory. Catt manages to stay sober with the help of best friend Bree, Skylar’s mom, and AA sponsor Shana, a “hot lesbian documentary-film producer.” Catt’s worries about the serial killer intensify after her neighbor, a model and aspiring actress, becomes his third victim. Abandoned by Bree, Catt hits the bottle and sets the stage for the climactic confrontation with the killer. Few readers will care about her fate. Agent: Laurie Liss, Sterling Lord Literistic.

August 1, 2014
Sober for nearly 12 years, Catt and her best friend, Bree, have created perfect lives for themselves in Los Angeles. But sobriety, like perfection, is a fragile thing. They style hair at the ominously named Head Hunter, work out at the Body Farm and maintain their blog, Love Monster, which comments on all the things that make a sober life tolerable. And together, they manage to care for Bree's son, since her "Baby Daddy" usually has better things to do. When murdered and mutilated women's bodies start turning up, the entire community goes on high alert. All the victims are model beautiful-and bear a disturbing resemblance to Bree-and each has lost her legs or arms. When Catt's husband, Dash, leaves her to start a family with another woman, her personal life begins spiraling down. Although she ought to be locking her doors and avoiding strangers, she joins an online dating service and falls into bed with nearly every man she meets. Who can she really trust? Big Bob, the creepy owner of the Body Farm? Scott, her workout buddy, who seems to be paler every time she seems him? Dash's brother, Cyan, the sexy but remote photographer? Her reckless behavior threatens not only her sobriety, but also the careful life she's constructed. Block (Love in the Time of Global Warming, 2013, etc.) again examines the interstices of addiction and sexuality and the limits of what a woman will do for those she loves. Aiming for a haunting eroticism, she instead achieves a numbing sense of dread, as the reader wonders not what the serial killer will do next but how Catt will degrade herself further. Even the final showdown between Catt and the killer is marred by exposition, which defuses much of the tension.Instead of erotic noir, a grim study of failed sobriety.

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August 1, 2014
When her musician husband, Dash, leaves her, Catt's life begins to disintegrate. Now 36 years old and sober for 11 years, Catt begins looking for love and security in a number of ill-fated, short-term relationships. When she accidentally eats a drug-laced cookie at her birthday party, her sobriety is threatened and her best friend and fellow recovering alcoholic, Bree, abandons her. Meanwhile, a serial killer is loose in the Hollywood Hills, and all his dismembered victims look hauntingly like Bree. Catt determines to save her erstwhile friend, but her life is now out of control, and, finally, she turns to her ex-husband's brother, Cyan, for help. Block's latest adult novel is a lush study in sensuality and dread; Catt's lovemaking is explicitly described as her environment becomes increasingly suffused with fear. Who is the killer? Will Catt and Bree rediscover their friendship? What exactly is happening at the Pale Motel? The answers arrive in a fever dream of a narrative that at once fascinates and repels. Love, a staple in Block's earlier novels, is fugitive here, replaced by disappointment and ever-present danger.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)