Reading order
| # | Title | Published | Author | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Tangerine | 2018 | Christine Mangan | Buy |
| 2 | Palace of the Drowned | 2021 | Christine Mangan | Buy |
| 3 | The Continental Affair | 2023 | Christine Mangan | Buy |
Tangerine (2018) follows Alice Shipley, an anxious American living in 1956 Tangier with her new husband, whose precarious equilibrium is shattered by the unexpected arrival of Lucy Mason, a college friend from whom she had been separated by an unexplained accident at Bennington. The novel is a study in obsessive female friendship and the question of who, exactly, is manipulating whom. It became a bestseller through a combination of critical enthusiasm and word of mouth, and the film option reinforced its commercial success.
Palace of the Drowned (2021) centers on Frankie Croy, a British novelist who has retreated to a Venetian palazzo after a public breakdown and a scathing review. When a young admirer, Gilly, insinuates herself into Frankie’s solitary recovery, the relationship darkens in ways Frankie cannot fully see until it is too late. Venice’s 1966 flood and the city’s general atmosphere of decay and grandeur serve as the novel’s emotional key.
The Continental Affair (2023) shifts to something closer to thriller — Louise, an Englishwoman who has stolen money from dangerous people, and Henri, a former French gendarme sent to recover it, meet at the Alhambra and are drawn into a chase that doubles as a love story. The novel’s European itinerary, from Spain through France, Yugoslavia, and Turkey, gives it a Hitchcock-inflected quality the earlier books, rooted in single locations, deliberately avoid.