Dear Great Book Guru,  My friends and I take our children every week to Storytime at Sea Cliff Beach and we stay afterwards for lunch on the pavilion. Last week one of the parents mentioned a new book about a cruise gone terribly bad - she called it a psychological thriller and recommended it to us. Any thoughts?  Fan of Sea Cliff Beach.

Dear Fan of Sea Cliff Beach, I just finished reading THE ANNIVERSARY by Stephanie Bishop and it is quite the thriller. The novel opens with J.B.Blackwood, a forty year old Australian author receiving news that she has received a major literary award – think the Booker - but she is cautioned not to tell her much older husband Patrick, a famous filmmaker because Blackwood tells us “he can’t be trusted to keep secrets.”  J.B. has planned a luxurious cruise to celebrate their wedding anniversary and its final destination will be the award ceremony. The couple had met years before when she was his student at a prestigious university while he was married with an infant son. The opening chapters recount their blissful courtship and travels around the world. A few pages in we learn that a storm breaks out onboard the ship and Patrick is thrown overboard. Gradually, we begin to suspect there is more going on in the marriage than our narrator has suggested. Ultimately, we realize that nothing we have been told – from childhood memories to present day events - is to be trusted. A disturbing albeit compelling tale….recommended!