Dying to Meet You by Sarina Bowen
After achieving remarkable success with contemporary romance novels, including 24 that landed on the USA Today bestseller lists, Sarina Bowen turned her considerable talent for crafting riveting tales to writing suspense thrillers. Her 2024 debut in this genre, The Five Year Lie, garnered well-earned praise with a plot concerning invasion of privacy resulting from an abuse of technology. Her latest, Dying to Meet You, is one of those exceptional books that may, just as you might have done at the movies, have you literally yelling at the heroine not to return to that spooky mansion. It’s an edge-of-your-seat thriller with more surprises and twists than could possibly be anticipated, with the additional satisfaction that the author has not neglected to include her proven forte, a little romance.
Protagonist Rowan Gallagher is an in-demand, top architect recognized for her authentic restoration work on residences and commercial buildings. She is already six months into a current high-profile commission, a two-year contract for the renewal of the historic mansion owned by billionaire Hank Wincott. The Wincott family is among the most prominent and wealthiest families in Portland, Maine. Settling there in 1805, they made their first millions as shipbuilders. Later generations developed a global shipping corporation, now overseen by Hank’s older brother. The Wincott Charitable Foundation is Hank’s bailiwick.
A House with a History
In 1860, the original brick home had been grandly expanded into the existing mansion. It boasts hand-carved woodwork, planked flooring, an elaborate staircase and massive stained glass windows, including one on the top floor in a wave pattern with the family symbol, the letter “W” shaped like a trident. The atrium features a skylight soaring 30 feet. The design and construction represent the epitome of a 19th-century blend of money and good taste. Restoration costs will, without a doubt, exceed the original building costs, but the Wincotts are more concerned with historical accuracy and modern updating. It’s a grand and beautiful stately mansion that also seems to have a ghost; contractors have told Rowan they hear a woman crying, and none of them wants to be the last to leave for the day.
Rowan is a divorced single mom of Natalie, a bright 16-year-old daughter who has endless unanswered questions about her father, Harrison Gallagher, last seen when she was a baby. From what little she has gleaned about this “loser,” he was a musician in a band and a line cook at Docksider’s Bar & Grill, where her mom was a 19-year-old summer hire waitress. Also, until recently, he was imprisoned for nearly beating a man to death. Rowan is adamant that the two don’t meet now that Harrison has been released on parole and returned to Portland. A mom’s best intentions may be ignored by a wily, determined teenager, though.
The crux of the plot revolves around the murder of Rowan’s boyfriend Tim, a journalist who is found dead in the driver’s seat of his car parked outside the Wincott Mansion, shot point blank in the face. Rowan had sworn off men for years after her shattering relationship with ex-husband Harrison, but was enjoying the attention and dates with Tim. Thus, she was stunned when he abruptly broke up with her via a text message. Irrationally, she had been stalking him with her phone and was the person who found his body. Walking her Belgian Malinois dog, Lick Jagger, late at night was not an adequate excuse for the investigators, and Rowan quickly becomes their prime suspect. She learns Tim had clandestinely been gathering details about her past and her work at the mansion.
Dark Secrets Emerge
Determined to prove her innocence and to unmask the killer, Rowan begins her own investigation. Deeply held secrets begin to emerge, some revealed in old books, including a family Bible concealed under the floorboards. Grandpa Marcus Wincott had converted the mansion into a Magdalene Home for Wayward Girls beginning in the late 1940s, which continued until about 1980. Unwed girls of “loose morals” lived here and worked in the home as de facto indentured servants, unable to leave until they were 21. Many of their babies were not born in a hospital but at the mansion, with frequent irregularities occurring in the birth details and adoption records. She begins to suspect Marcus may have sexually abused these young women and fathered some of the children who were adopted out. Rowan discovers photos from annual Wincott Foundation Family Picnics and notices the Magdalene children were given and wore silver Saint Raymond medallions around their necks. Saint Raymond is a 13th-century canonized Spanish priest, known as the patron saint of childbirth and pregnant women.
Rowan is startled when she realizes Harrison’s late mother wore one of these medallions, which was given to her daughter Natalie upon her birth. Other people she encounters also possess them. She realized Tim may have been killed while researching his own shadowy family origins. Unable to put the puzzle pieces fully together, she ignores threatening messages, not realizing she is in mortal danger. Rowan questions how well she actually knows her boyfriend Tim, ex-husband Harrison, boss Hank Wincott or the staff and contractors at work. Who can she trust?
Without sharing vital details of the complex plot and the surprise ending, Dying to Meet You is a must-read, and despite being an overused cliché, it is a genuine page-turner. Sarina Bowen is in good company with domestic thriller authors such as Lisa Jewell, Paula Hawkins, Mary Higgins Clark and Daphne du Maurier, among others.
About Sarina Bowen:
Sarina Bowen is a #1 Amazon bestselling author, a 24-time USA Today bestseller, and a Wall Street Journal bestselling author of contemporary novels. Formerly a derivatives trader on Wall Street, Sarina graduated magna cum laude from Yale University with a BA in economics.
A New Englander whose Vermont ancestors cut timber and farmed the north country in the 1760s, Sarina is grateful for the invention of indoor plumbing and wi-fi during the intervening 250 years. She lives with her family on a few wooded acres in New Hampshire.
Sarina’s books are published in more than 15 languages with twenty or so international publishers.
She is a sitting council member on the Authors Guild, with committee work in finance and advocacy.
