Bad Juliet

by Giles Blunt

At a sanatorium in the Adirondacks, a young tutor falls in love with a mysterious woman suffering from tuberculosis who survived the Lusitania disaster.

Recently jilted by his fiancée, Paul Gascoyne takes a job as a tutor to the patients at the Trudeau Sanatorium in upstate New York. There, in the icebound beauty of the Adirondack Mountains, he finds himself drawn to Sarah Ballard, a beautiful but enigmatic young woman, traumatized by her past aboard the ill-fated Lusitania. To rouse her out of her gloom, Paul encourages her to write a memoir.

As Paul reads her words, it gradually becomes clear that Sarah’s memories are a tangle of truth and fiction that he can’t begin to unravel. And yet he cannot overcome his attraction to her. When a terrible relapse leaves her worried that she has little time left, Sarah begs Paul to be the one person in the world who will truly know her.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction, Canada, Historical, Literary Fiction

352 pages, Paperback

Published September 2, 2025

About the author

Giles Blunt (born 1952 in Windsor, Ontario) is a Canadian novelist and screenwriter. His first novel, Cold Eye, was a psychological thriller set in the New York art world, which was made into the French movie Les Couleurs du diable (Allain Jessua, 1997).

He is also the author of the John Cardinal novels, set in the small town of Algonquin Bay, in Northern Ontario. Blunt grew up in North Bay, and Algonquin Bay is North Bay very thinly disguised — for example, Blunt retains the names of major streets and the two lakes (Trout Lake and Lake Nipissing) that the town sits between, the physical layout of the two places is the same, and he describes Algonquin Bay as being in the same geographical location as North Bay.

The first Cardinal story, Forty Words for Sorrow, won the British Crime Writers' Silver Dagger, and the second, The Delicate Storm, won the Crime Writers of Canada's Arthur Ellis Award for best novel.

More recently he has written No Such Creature, a "road novel" set in the American southwest, and Breaking Lorca, which is set in a clandestine jail in El Salvador in the 1980s. His novels have been compared to the work of Ian Rankin and Cormac McCarthy.

Series:
* John Cardinal and Lise Delorme Mystery

Awards:
Arthur Ellis Award
◊ Best Novel (2004): The Delicate Storm
Crime Writers' Association Silver Dagger
◊ 2001: Forty Words for Sorrow

Reviews

[Deborah · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

An odd love story, in which an older novelist, in 1954, writes about his time as a young man in the mid-1910s working as a tutor at a tuberculosis sanitarium in the Adirondacks. There, he meets and falls in love with a beautiful young woman who survived the sinking of the Lusitania, but alas, she unwisely loves another. Nevertheless, he and the young woman remain friends, and, as it soon becomes clear that she is not who she seems, she gradually reveals to him parts of her life that have remained concealed from everyone. An atmospheric mystery, interesting for the historical details.

[Sheila · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 stars, kept waffling on rounding up or down. This for me is historical fiction at its best- great setting in a TB sanotarium in the Adirondacks, great characters- believeably flawed but I was rooting for them all, great writing with a strong plot. Some overlly stereotypical characters, which is a flaw most historical fiction has, with the stern doctor, gruff mafia boss with a soft heart, famous scallywag producer. However, all of the main characters were very 3 dimensional and didn't adhere to any given trope.

[Jennifer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oh, I love how this man writes! It is a lyrical feast for the soul. The cherry on top is that he is a fellow Canadian.

Three extraordinary examples of his writing style (and there are many throughout the novel) are:

Paul describing how Sarah speaks with her hands on page 49
"Her right arm made unconscious movements as she spoke: hand now open, now closed; now at a flag-like angle to her wrist, now fanned open as if to stop an oncoming cyclist."

Paul describing the voice of a diner page 66
"He was much younger than I had thought from the sound of his voice, which was remarkable. Gravelly, as I have said, but it also had a liquid, chewy quality-every vowel and consonant given it's full weight, so that the result made each sound thoroughly considered."

Finally, Paul describing his conflicting emotions on page 81
"As I walked away, the molecules of humiliation, frustration, and most of the other negative emotions smashed into each other within my chest and formed a throbbing ball of anger...."

This novel captivated me from the first page. The main characters endeared themselves quickly. There is at least one of them that you can relate to or know someone similar within your own social circle.

The insight into TB and its early treatments before antibiotics were enlightening. My family and I took a vacation to Lake Placid when I was very young. Saranac Lake was 15 mins away. I wish I could have had the knowledge of what I now know, to truly appreciate what my younger self had seen.

Sprinkled throughout you are given the unique perspective of a romantic relationship from a male POV. I had never encountered that before.
It will be something I'll be on the lookout for in future novels . Such a refreshing change.


Some treasures and highlights are:

A massive twist critics could argue happened really early (page 108) . I would agree with them. Even though I wasn't prepared for it, I think there could have been a massive uptick in the drama and intrigue had the revelation been made later in the novel.

After the introduction of the main characters, you find yourself guessing where the title of the book comes from. It happens on page 245.

A fascinating method of journaling is described when Paul discusses "The Memoir Club " on page 47.

You learn the true meaning behind "cousining" as it pertains to the acceptable social customs of the day on page 84

The story propels you to a tragic ending that you wished you hadn't seen coming, but knew to be inevitable. All of the elements that make a novel unforgettable can be found here.

[Janet Berkman · Rating 5 out of 5]

A completely engaging read, set in the TB “industry” in the Adirondacks in the early 20th century.

Paul Gascoyne, having lost his academic job and fiancée, takes employment as a teacher/tutor at the sanitarium where he meets a beautiful young woman, a survivor (and widow) of the Lusitania disaster.

The novel has a number of twists and turns, some concerning how much we really know about anyone, as well as the strictures of societal mores. I also learned quite a bit about the fresh air and immobility cure for TB, and how more modern approaches, like graduated exercise and then antibiotics, turned the prognosis of this disease around.

But mostly we witness Paul’s struggles with his own heart as well as with the doctors and nursing sisters who work at the San. Someday, I would love to visit Saranac Lake where the novel is set.

[Toni Osborne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Recently jilted by his fiancée, Paul Gascoyne takes a job as a tutor to the patients at the Trudeau Sanatorium in upstate New York. he finds himself drawn to Sarah Ballard, a beautiful but enigmatic young woman, traumatized by her past aboard the ill-fated Lusitania. To rouse her out of her gloom, Paul encourages her to write a memoir. “Bad Juliet” tells what happened……enjoy.

Set in a sanitarium among the awe-inspiring lakes and forests of upstate New York, this powerful and engrossing tale of a famous Broadway playwright, a struggling poet and a beautiful woman suffering from tuberculosis which both men love held me in its grip from the opening chapter.

The masterful prose of Giles Blunt, a writer at the top of his game, captures the world of an early twentieth century sanitorium beautifully. His tantalizing narrative is magic and reveals tragedy, lies, and passionate love among characters who are much more complicated than they seem at first glance. This compelling journey filled with twists that occurs when obsessive love sets itself inside one’s mind is well paced and well done.

A side note:

Mr. Blunt after learning the remarkable history of Saranac Lake and the pioneering sanitarium that put it on the world map a hundred years ago, took a new direction for his fiction and wanted to tell the most compelling story. Mr. Blunt you did it. Sarah Ballard, the “Bad Juliet” won my heart also.

I received this ARC from Dundurn Press via Netgalley for my thoughts: this is the way I see it

[Janet Hutchinson · Rating 4 out of 5]

My familiarity with this author was around the Cardinal mysteries, so I approached this with an expectation of - being disappointed? Not a lot of deep writing? I don’t know, but I do have to say that I was pleasantly surprised. Blunt's exploration of the early 20th century, in a small upper New York State town, known for the sanitarium and the “industry” of caring, and hopefully, curing the sick, was an engaging read. Well- researched, the story ties in the sinking of the Lusitania, with the mystery surrounding a young woman with TB, and the unfolding of her story, under the guidance of an English tutor. And the title is natural, given the unwinding of her story.

[Michael]

My conversation with Blunt discussing the book here:
https://umfm.com/programming/broadcas...

[Lucy Black]

In Bad Juliet, Giles Blunt has recreated particular aspects of the world of 1915-1916 with great attention to detail and highly polished wordsmithing. The setting is a tuberculosis sanitorium in the Adirondack Mountains. Paul, the cocky and pretentious narrator is a failed academic who reluctantly takes a position tutoring some of the patients in poetry, fiction and memoir writing. One of his patients is a frail young woman named Sarah Ballard who had survived the sinking of the RMS Lusitania. Paul convinces Sarah to write her memoir and is both fascinated and horrified by her stories. As Paul endeavors to define himself as a poet or novelist, he is drawn further into the drama and mystery of Sarah’s tales. The characters in Blunt’s work are well drawn and memorable. There’s a Nick Carraway feel to the narration, and the thrust of the story is well-paced and engaging. Much like the ending in The Great Gatsby, one is left wondering about the illusive nature of fulfillment and genuine happiness for Blunt’s characters. An impressive work of historical fiction.

[Paul Wagenbreth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Considerably enhancing the appeal for me of Giles Blunt’s compelling display of narrative surprise, “Bad Juliet,” were the numerous parallels I found with the most mesmerizing display of narrative surprise I’ve ever read, John Fowles’ magisterial “The Magus.” Indeed, as I was absorbing what I took to be the chief concerns of Blunt’s novel I felt a bit like the “perspicacious” reader Fowles credited with finding numerous parallels between “The Magus” and a favorite Dickens novel of his (and a compelling display of narrative surprise in its own right), “Great Expectations.”
And while that particular Dickens novel isn’t specifically cited in Blunt’s novel (that I recall, anyway), references to Dickens’ works as well as those of other renowned writers, including Hardy and Stevenson, pepper the pages of Blunt’s distinctly literary work.
It’s Shakespeare, though, whose presence is most evident – indeed, it’s from “Romeo and Juliet” that the title comes, with Blunt's mysterious female principal, Sarah, a patient at a tuberculosis sanitarium (reminiscent the setting was for me of Mann’s “The Magic Mountain”) saying that she didn’t make for a good Juliet when her photographer father tried to cast her as Shakespeare’s heroine in photographic spreads. And later, she remarks to the novel’s male principal, Paul Gascoyne, whom she is trying to disabuse from idolizing her, that she’s a bad Juliet.
Much ado, at any rate, about literature and writing in both Fowles and Blunt (both aspiring poets, their male protagonists), though for all Fowles remarking that his novel was intended to be about both life and writing, I found the concern with writing more distinctly evident in Blunt’s novel, where Paul, who’s trying to help Sarah with her agitated mental state, presses her to write down her life experiences, including, most notably, her having survived the torpedoing of the Lusitania, which killed her father and fiance.
Or that’s her initial version, anyway, of a story which, like some of the events chronicled in “The Magus,” goes through a couple of variations.
No deviating, though, in either of her accounts from the horrificness of the sea disaster for her. Of the actual sinking, for instance, she recalls how one man dangled from a rope off the rear railings and “as the ship sank deeper it twisted suddenly to port and he was swung into a still-turning propeller that sliced off a leg.”
So still traumatized, indeed, does Paul find her from the sinking that he reflects that it’s “as if the behemoth had not yet concluded the business of drowning her.”
An enigma, at any rate, Sarah, and not just in the way of a similarly enigmatic female character in “The Magus” whose guises include a character named “Julie,” but also in the way of another mysterious Fowles female principal, Sarah, in his “The French Lieutenant’s Woman,” which Blunt’s novel also put me in mind of, both with the shared heroines’ names as well as an extratextual footnote in Blunt’s novel which, with its further explication of something in the novel, was evocative for me of the many such authorial intrusions in “French Lieutenant.”
All of which is not to give the impression about either “The Magus” or “Bad Juliet,” with the spell of sorts that the females in both novels cast on their male protagonists, that the males are pure-as-snow innocent victims of scheming deceivers. Especially not the case is that in Fowles’ novel, where his protagonist, a cad of the first order when it comes to women, is richly deserving of the number that the novel does on him. And while Blunt’s Paul is nowhere near the lout toward women as Fowles’ protagonist, he freely acknowledges that his behavior in romantic pursuits hasn’t always been above reproach: “Young men,” he says, “particularly those with poetic pretensions, will often try on melancholy as a style, imagining that the more sensitive type of female will find it attractive. It pains me to admit I was one of them.”
Something, then, of a heuristic mill about love both novels can be seen as for their male principals, though other concerns, most notably about war and art, are in clear evidence. But in the same way that what stood out for me about Edith Wharton’s “Ethan Frome,” amid its more orthodox critical reaction, was what I took to be its harsh truth about the illusion of love versus its reality, what stood out mostly for me about Blunt’s novel was its take on love. So with Fowles’ noting that he regarded any reader reaction to his work as appropriate, I’ll take that as sufficient warrant to stand with what I found to be most compelling about Blunt’s novel, which, either as compelling story or something more intellectually heady, is an absorbing treat for readers in general and a particularly captivating one for those like me with an abiding interest in art and writing.

[Carolyn Walsh · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thanks to NetGalley and Dundurn Press for an early Electronic copy of 'Bad Juliet' by Giles Blunt. It is due for publication on September 02. Giles Blunt is an award-winning Canadian writer, probably best known for his six thrillers featuring Detective John Cardinal and his working partner Lise Delorme, written between 2000 and 2012. I had read all of these books, some before I joined Goodreads, and they remain my top mystery series. These books were adapted into Cardinal, a TV series which aired from 2017 until 2020. It was called a landmark in Canadian TV, described as superbly made, bloody and gritty. It was viewed worldwide in 100 countries, and I discovered that some seasons are available to stream on Crave, so I have started rewatching them again. I was thrilled to receive his latest book, which promptly took its place at the top of my reading list.

The author of the Cardinal series later switched to writing literary fiction. Bad Juliet is not categorized as a mystery, but due to the characters, their personalities, and attitudes, I found it suspenseful and tense. I needed to know what would happen to them. The story centers on lies, false memories, deliberate deception, a lack of confidence, volatile emotions, illness, and the struggles of becoming a writer. It deeply examines the human condition.

Paul is an aspiring poet and fiction writer, but he feels he lacks talent. He has little experience with women and is upset because his only girlfriend jilted him. The time is the early 1900s, and World War I is occurring in Europe. Tuberculosis is a common, feared, and deadly disease. Paul moves to the Trudeau Sanatorium in the Adirondacks of upstate New York to work with patients as a teacher of literature and writing. Dr. Trudeau had founded the sanatorium, which aimed to provide a cure or comfort to TB patients by offering them plenty of rest and fresh air. Paul is attracted to Sarah, a female patient who is recovering from her illness. He learns she survived the sinking of the Lusitania when a German U-boat torpedoed it in 1915. 1193 died and 767 survived. Public opinion caused the USA to enter the war. Paul is told that Sarah married a man she met on board ship, and he and her father were killed.

Sarah does not believe she can write anything, but Paul encourages her to write a memoir, suggesting that she can add fictional elements to make it more engaging. He wants to write poetry in his spare time, but lacks confidence. He struggles to write fiction and makes little progress. To avoid boredom, the patients can study various subjects and walk in the fresh air if they are well enough. There are also stage plays and performances by notable musicians. Paul and Sarah discuss Shakespeare and decide that Sarah would make a bad Juliet because she scorns the love and sorrow that lead to Juliet's death. She contends she would never indulge in those emotions. Paul is unable to discern how much of Sarah's writing is fact and what is fictional. Some of her memoir shocks him. He finds himself falling in love with her and dreams of marriage, but is too shy to declare his feelings.

Paul and Sarah are joined by a Broadway playwright, Jasper. The three friends spend a lot of time together. Jasper is alternately kind and flattering, but then can switch to cruel words. Jasper and Paul are jealous of each other. Jasper insisted that Sarah requires more exercise than the doctors permit. He persuades Sarah to do some strenuous climbing that even Paul finds too difficult. This results in a relapse for Sarah, and she lingers near death.
Nevertheless, she confesses to Paul that she has become obsessed with Jasper and thinks she is in love. Jasper has gone away, causing Sarah to be distraught. She does not want to live without him and pleads with Paul to search for him. He looks in NYC, and finally finds him deep in the wilderness. Jasper's trying to write his next stage play. Paul tells him Sarah will die if he doesn't return with him. Jasper ignores him. Paul visits Sarah, finding her much recovered from her near-death experience. She says she has not heard from Jasper and has lost interest in him due to his unreliability. Soon, Sarah has vanished. Where is she?

After a shocking discovery, Paul joins the military. They decided he would be better suited for espionage than for soldiering. He becomes a bestselling writer.

Recommended!

[Doreen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This historical novel is part romance and part mystery narrated by an older, wiser narrator detailing events that led to his increasing self-awareness 40 years earlier. 

In 1915, 22-year-old Paul Gascoyne, after sabotaging an academic career, becomes an English literature tutor to patients at a tuberculosis sanitarium in the Adirondacks of upper New York State. There he meets Sarah Ballard, a young woman who survived the Lusitania disaster. To rouse her out of her gloom, Paul encourages her to write a memoir. It eventually becomes clear that her memoir is a mix of fact and fiction. Then when her health deteriorates and death is not unlikely, Sarah begs Paul to be the one person in the world who will truly know her and she reveals secrets she has told only one other person. But is she a reliable narrator of her life story?

There is also a romance story. Paul falls in love with the beautiful, enigmatic Sarah, but she is in love with Jasper Keene, a promising playwright, who is also in love with her. The three are friends, but when Jasper disappears for extended periods without explanation, Sarah turns to Paul. She often places him in the difficult position of assisting her relationship with Jasper. Will Paul be able to put Sarah’s happiness ahead of his personal desires?

It is the characterization of Paul which stood out for me. As a man in his sixties, Paul describes his younger self very aptly: a “callow, pompous, and self-involved” young man who needs to learn that “he may misjudge people and get things wrong even when – especially when – he is most confident he is right.” When he first arrives in Saranac Lake, it takes him a while to escape “his personal ivory tower . . . moated with prejudice” and leave behind his “juvenile resentment at the injustice of my exile.” His life has been privileged and not particularly difficult until his fiancée jilts him and then he throws away a job as a university lecturer because he isn’t given what he wants. He seems very much a spoiled, entitled young man.

It is Paul’s attitude to women that I found particularly distasteful. He decides that his mission for the next few years will be to become “’a thoroughgoing cad . . . a heartbreaker of the first order. I’m going to enjoy as much female affection as possible while limiting my own emotional engagement to lofty amusement.’” He wants to rid himself of “the tiresome burden of virginity” and so attempts to seduce women without any concern for their feelings or reputations. Totally oblivious to the double standard, he then believes that he could never “fall in love with anyone who was not a virgin.” He has a lot to learn about love and the lessons are painful, as he realizes only later.

These views about love cause him a lot of difficulty; full of self-importance, he doesn’t like his beliefs challenged. For the longest time, he will not allow himself to believe what Sarah tells him about her life. She admonishes him, “’What I may have been to you I don’t know – a Madonna? A Juliet attached to the wrong Romeo? I make a bad Juliet. But for some reason – some reason that has nothing to do with who or what I actually am – you’ve chosen to idealize me.’” He is very much a doubting Thomas with “an innate preference for comfortable ignorance.”

I loved the writing style. I enjoy diction which uses words like farceur, Panglossian, gracile, and seraglio. Literary allusions abound: reference is made to Charles Dickens, T. S. Eliot, Robert Louis Stevenson, Stephen Crane, George Eliot, Henry James, Joseph Conrad, and, of course, Shakespeare. And the title is perfect. Given the fate of Sarah and Jasper, that title provides food for thought.

Giles Blunt may be best known for his John Cardinal detective series, but this literary fiction is definitely worthy of attention too.

Please check out my reader's blog (https://schatjesshelves.blogspot.com/) or substack (https://doreenyakabuski.substack.com/) for over 1,200 of my book reviews.

[The Idea Shop · Rating 5 out of 5]

With it's natural beauty, Saranac Lake has long attracted visitors looking for taste of unspoiled nature and fresh air.

And for these reasons, it was also home to one of the world’s foremost Tuberculosis sanitariums in the early 20th Century.

This is where award-winning author Giles Blunt has set his first new novel in a decade.

Set in 1916, Bad Juliet centers around the recently jilted Paul Gascoyne, a 23-year-old poet/scholar who has given up his post as a lecturer at a New York university.

Begrudgingly accepting a tutor position at the world-famous Trudeau Sanitarium in Saranac Lake, Paul finds himself enchanted by one of the patients.

Mysterious 20-year-old Sarah Ballard purports to be one of the survivors of the Lusitania disaster.

Not one for reading, Paul is able to coax Sarah into writing a memoir-style diary which includes some of the details of her life-changing voyage on along with some other unexpected revelations.

Against all of his instincts and better judgement, and with a high-profile suitor also vying for Sarah’s affection, Paul finds himself becoming enchanted with Sarah while discovering that she may not be all that she seems.

Blunt’s decades of success as a mystery author (his bestselling Cardinal series inspired a wonderful award-winning tv series) serves him in good stead here as Bad Juliet is a memorable page-turner - but of a different kind.

Through Sarah’s writings and Paul’s curiosity, Blunt tantalizingly reveals different facets of the puzzle that is Sarah - and in the process he takes readers on an irresistible ride as Paul falls under Sarah’s spell and comes to discover why she may be a “bad Juliet”.

From ice castles and mountain trails to the cure cottage life , Blunt does a remarkable job bringing this important era of Adirondack history to life Blunt has clearly researched both the area and era in detail and Bad Juliet sparkles with an authentic sheen making for a sublime read that keeps readers guessing until the very last. Bad Juliet is a welcome return of one of Canada's foremost writers and is easily one of the finest books of the year

[Alison Gadsby · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oh the challenge in writing a review of a book that impresses with its particular narrative voice, a first person collection of thoughts and memories (with a memoir within), that for everything told to us by the narrator about another character, might be a book of fact or a complete fiction, a set of lies written to make him (writer, Paul Gascoyne) look better than he is (a self-centred academic who believes he deserves more than he’s worth) or an attempt to judge himself more harshly than he did at the time (40 years earlier).
I love that this novel exists as both the story of a flawed and lost soul, Sarah Ballard (Redmond) who loses everything, including her memory of events, during the sinking of the Lusitania, whose choices reflect badly on every other “true” event of her past. It is the recollection of Paul Gascoyne, who loved her, and a playwright, Jasper Keene, who also loved her. There are stories shared about imperfect fathers (perhaps even morally so); there are other patients/students at a sanitorium in the Adirondacks, and several other typical sorts of the era (1915-1918), but more than all the perfectly flawed characters, the novel is a genuinely voiced story about potentiality and all that is lost when we cannot be true to who we are.
Blunt harnesses a particular style that feels exactly perfect for the story, a Gatsby-esque quality for certain, but where the narrator is front and centre (mainly because he seems the type to not think of anyone but himself). If you’re getting the impression, I don’t like the narrator all that much, it’s okay. Paul Gascoyne is also perfectly exact for the time, and I wouldn’t change a thing about him. Blunt has gone above and beyond my expectations with this novel but skilfully manages the slow unfolding mystery readers have come to appreciate.

[Sarah · Rating 2 out of 5]

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC.

Check your trigger warnings before this one.

Bad Juliet by Giles Blunt immediately brought to mind William Styron's Sophie's Choice, and that comparison truly shaped my reading experience. While the settings differ—post-WW2 America for Styron and 1910s/1920s Saranac Lake for Blunt—the core character dynamics are strikingly similar.

Blunt presents Paul Gascoyne, a young, impressionable writer who becomes deeply involved in the tumultuous lives of an enigmatic couple. Sarah Ballard, much like Sophie, is a woman haunted by unimaginable tragedy, recovering from tuberculosis and burdened by secrets and shifting truths. Her partner, Jasper Keene, mirrors Nathan with his eccentricities, volatile moods, and intense possessiveness.

The narrative centers on Gascoyne's developing feelings for Sarah as she navigates her complex relationship with Jasper. As the trio spends time together, Gascoyne frequently plays mediator to Sarah and Jasper's dramatic highs and lows.

The story builds as Sarah's TB rapidly takes a turn for the worst, exacerbated by social events insisted on by Jasper. When Sarah’s condition worsened, Jasper disappeared, but Gascoyne and Sarah continue to meet. Sarah finally shares the rest of her story, which includes a former lover who turned out to be a violent rapist, leading to Sarah's decision to have an abortion. What I found infuriating was Gascoyne's unwavering refusal to believe her account. He insists she couldn't possibly have had a lover, been raped, or opted to terminate a pregnancy. He attempts to justify his disbelief by citing the beliefs of the time, claiming he could never fall "...in love with someone who was not a virgin, let alone a women who had terminated the spawn of a rapist, or claimed to." This was absolutely maddening, especially considering the double standard of him spending a majority of the novel trying to solve his own "virginity problem." Eventually, Gascoyne is told that finding Jasper may be the only thing that can save Sarah's rapid decline.

Gascoyne manages to locate Jasper and in a moment of surprising self-awareness, Jasper admits to being more wrong than good for Sarah acknowledging he needs to be apart from her, regardless of how much he loves her. Gascoyne returns to Sarah but never tells her that he saw Jasper. The two continue their friendship as Sarah’s health improves. Eventually the duo plan a trip to New Jersey to decide what to do with Sarah’s childhood home, but surprise surprise Gascoyne receives a note from Sarah moments before the train leaves the station that Jasper has returned and she’ll be staying there with him. Gascoyne makes the trip to New Jersey and when going through Sarah’s father’s things, he discovers that Sarah had in fact been telling the truth all along.

When Gascoyne returns to Saranac, he’s informed that Jasper is up to his old antics keeping Sarah out and breaking her doctor’s orders attempting to use nature as a cure, but most disturbing is that the pair are missing. Gascoyne makes his way to a lookout point in the woods that the trio had previously visited, and found the pair. Sarah was dead, Jasper died a few hours later in hospital. A court ruled their deaths a double suicide, but those who knew Sarah wildly disagreed with that verdict.

———

All in all, this book was just okay for me. The parallels with Sophie's Choice (I actually bought a copy of Sophie's Choice halfway through to reread because this book made me miss those characters) kept me engaged, but in the end, Sarah was the only character I genuinely liked. I found both Gascoyne and Jasper quite exhausting. While the plot had an interesting premise, the moments of overwhelming misogyny frequently pulled me out of the story. For example, Gascoyne saying “I still did not - could not - believe she had been raped. But I understood why she might say so, what would drive her to believe it. I would get over the rest of it, I knew that now, and my feelings would be all the more tender. Such as the erotic power of damaged perfection: the strand of hair falling out of place, the crack in the masterpiece, the immaculate Madonna.” Nope. No thanks. That’s really gross. (I for one, can’t blame Emily for leaving him. Lucky lady dodged a bullet as far as I’m concerned. Also him referring to her as “Dread Emily” tells me all I need to know.) At the end of the story in a reflection of his time (Gascoyne is in 1954 at this point) he does mention he was “callow, pompous, and self-involved” and misjudged people and get things wrong even when he thought he was right. So I guess that’s an attempt at a bandaid on his action through the whole book? I’m praying Blunt wrote Gascoyne to be infuriating and that this isn’t a direct reflection of his beliefs.

Oh and guess what, Sarah wasn’t lying.

[Enid Wray]

I have never read Giles Blunt before - though the TV drama Cardinal was a particular favourite of mine.

As for this book, I can sum this up in a word: Boring. I am so not interested - and worse, I feel like I'm being schooled on the history of TB and sanitoriums. I get “world building” and “setting the stage” but this goes way beyond that.

On page 20 we get that “… I’ll spare you the details of…” to which my inner voice says thank goodness… you’ve already lectured me on too much… But no, we then proceed to fill me in on all those very details that you just said you weren’t going to

The writing is ponderous… the voice is archaic… Yes I get that this is an historical novel and it accurately reflects the style and manner of speech at the time. But I have no interest in suffering this… and that is a total fail on the part of the author that I just don’t care.

Let’s keep going… where a little further on we get a re-telling of his attempts at courting a nurse - named (conveniently!) Bella Troy. He refers to his ‘seige of Troy’. I presume that this was supposed to be an attempt at humour? Sorry - it fell completely flat for this reader.

This is nothing but a slog to read. And even if it does become - at some future point - something more that will hold me in its grip… you have asked too much of this reader in the getting there.

DNF

[Susan Walker · Rating 4 out of 5]

Giles Blunt does not repeat himself. Best known for his John Cardinal mystery series, Blunt is a poet and novelist of note. This latest novel is unlike anything he's written before. Bad Juliet is the story of an aspiring poet who gets a job teaching English at a tuberculosis sanitarium in the Adirondacks in the 1950s. There he meets a woman, Mrs. Ballard, who is a survivor of the sinking of the Lusitania. The first-person narrator tells the story of his own maturing and confusion, the horror of tuberculosis and the events that lead to his awakening to the nature of true love. Mrs. Ballard is a complex, shape-shifting character who fascinates the reader as much as the man who tells this story.

[Sarnfield · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked this one up because I’m a fan of the John Cardinal series. It couldn’t have been more polar opposite and could have earned a two star rating as easily as the four I gave it. The writing warranted the four. Perfectly captured the tone of the time in 1915. What could have made it a two was that not a whole lot happened. Much of it was the story of Sarah telling or writing her memoir while she was being treated for tuberculosis. So a whole heap of telling rather than any real action. That being said, the setting was evocative, the characters flawed, and the language of the time pitch perfect.

[John Mccormick · Rating 5 out of 5]

My thanks to the Author publisher's and NetGalley for providing me with a Kindle version of this book to read and honestly review.
What a quality storyteller this Author is atmospheric clever descriptive intelligent with superb characters throughout. A gentle sweet love story with a real feel for time and place. Tense at times with mystery and suspense and occasional surprise, as you would expect from the Author of the 'Cardinal' series.
I would ask my follow readers of they know why this Author's books are so expensive.
Completely and utterly recommended.

[Wendy Hearder-moan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Four stars because of the interesting insights into the treatment of tuberculosis circa 1915 (well-researched and nicely integrated into the novel) and also because there is so much to think about regarding the stories we tell others and the stories we tell ourselves. The narrator talks about himself as he was 40 years before, but how much of it can we rely on? Just as he finds it hard to reconcile the various stories Sarah hells him about herself. I was expecting a tragic ending but it still surprised me.

[Christy Stef · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 stars: While I enjoyed the writing style and the way the story is revealed, I found Gasgoyne the protagonist self-centred and unpleasant. His search for love and requirement for a virginal, sweet woman are backwards and laughable as he is no prize. However, it fits with the time and leads the reader to compare other characters and their relationships. A fitting ending ensues, although it takes longer than necessary; the book could have been edited down.

[Marcia · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5*
I have read all of Blunt’s Cardinal series but never knew him as a writer of literary fiction. This wonderful romance is set during World War I in a tuberculosis sanitarium in Saranac Lake, NY.
The protagonist is a young would-be writer hired to teach the residents writing and literature. Paul meets a patient, Sarah, and is immediately attracted to her. Who is the real Sarah and what is her story? Paul endeavours to discover her true persona through convincing her to write her memoirs.

[Shannon White · Rating 3 out of 5]

I suppose I understand an author’s desire to write something new and adventurous, perhaps outside the norm of their prior work. But if it isn’t going to be excellent, it just leaves readers wanting. Bad Juliet was not a great read. I kept waiting for it to twist into the crime themes that were blunt’s older works. Instead it just went on and on until it didn’t. This one missed the mark for me.

[Nicole · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed revisiting this author in a vastly different book. I do wonder why it’s not based in a Canadian venue but I enjoyed the glimpse into the world before the First World War, after Titanic and Lusitania, and before antibiotics.

[Anita · Rating 3 out of 5]

nothing like the cardinal series.. not for me

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting read, set in Saranac Lake in the Adirondacks. Giles Blunt is a good writer and the narrative flowed effortlessly.

[Ava Massicotte · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was okay

[Stephanie H]

Dnf at page 83. The voice is too pretentious, Paul is not an interesting narrator and I could have lived the rest of my life without reading the words “testicular whining”.

[Anna · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5*

[Marie-Josée Therrien · Rating 3 out of 5]

C'est une histoire intéressante. Le récit du jeune femme ayant survécu au torpillage du Lusitania, avant de se retrouver dans un sanatorium sur la côte Est américaine.

[Janet · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting read, strange love story and mystery. I appreciated how it read like the times it was set in, early 1900s. I had no idea Saranac Lake was once home to many TB “cure cottages”.