From Harper’s captivating use of setting, to her strong characterization, to the most unexpected ending, it was one of the most impressive pieces of literature I’d ever come across. I stayed in my bed for hours, turning page after page, and there was never a single misstep. In the two-page prologue, Harper established a haunting desert landscape that would go on to touch every aspect of the book, while also hooking the reader by masterfully introducing a family murder. It was the best start of a book I’d ever read. To them there was little difference between a carcass and a corpse.” “It wasn’t as though the farm hadn’t seen death before, and the blowflies didn’t discriminate. I ignored the back cover so I could go into the story with no preconceived notions, which made the opening paragraph even more grabbing: On a rainy day, I made a steaming cup of chamomile tea and grabbed a throw blanket, curled up on my dorm bunk, and dove into my new book.

Then a freshman at Berklee, I swung by the Barnes & Noble in Boston’s Prudential Center and purchased her novel, glaring at the name on the cover that was nearly the size of the novel’s title: The Dry. Her name?Īfter some crying and a slight identity crisis, I decided to buy the book to see if this Jane Harper was more deserving of the name than I was. So, you can imagine how heartbroken I was when a brand new author debuted with a New York Times’ bestseller. To me, the name represented the novel I had spent so much time developing, as well as someone I wanted to become. I became attached to Jane Harper the way someone becomes attached to a list of baby names. This decision included spending my evenings in my small-town coffee shop, wearing non-prescription glasses, and giving myself a pseudonym because, for some reason, Haley Griffin didn’t have a ring to it. When I was fifteen, I was set on becoming an author.

All four stars by tara dairman