The Blue Hour

Welcome to Eris: an island with only one house, one inhabitant, one way out. Unreachable from the Scottish mainland for twelve hours each day.

Once home to Vanessa: A famous artist whose notoriously unfaithful husband disappeared twenty years ago.

Now home to Grace: A solitary creature of the tides, content in her own isolation.

But when a shocking discovery is made in an art gallery far away in London, a visitor comes calling.

And the secrets of Eris threaten to emerge...

A masterful novel that is as page-turning as it is unsettling, The Blue Hour recalls the sophisticated suspense of Shirley Jackson and Patricia Highsmith and cements Hawkins's place among the very best of our most nuanced and stylish storytellers.

From the publisher

A potent brew of head-spinning deceptions, manipulations, and misdirections, The Blue Hour is a taut, slow-burning thriller that offers real-life apprehensions quietly tucked in amid all of its cunning malevolence." - Boston Globe

"You won't want to miss Hawkins at her best: weaving intricate storylines, masterfully jumping back and forth in time, and constructing a haunting mood that hangs over the book like a thick ocean fog." - Oprah Daily

"Intricately constructed...constantly surprising...dark and compelling." - Wall Street Journal

"Paula Hawkins has done it again...this taut, chilling read is just right for a dark November day." - Real Simple

"A tight story...that culminates in a shocking ending... there are few authors writing today who drip out [secrets], page by excruciating page, like Hawkins." - Associated Press

"The best Paula Hawkins yet - by a tense and haunting mile." - Lee Child

"The Blue Hour is an atmospheric, stylish puzzle box of a thriller with a deliciously inventive premise. I love a locked-room mystery--or, in this case, a locked-island mystery--and Paula Hawkins has delivered a truly exceptional one." - Liz Moore, New York Times bestselling author of The God of the Woods

"An atmospheric and marvelously twisty novel-- Paula Hawkins returns with an examination of legacy, and the mountains we'll move to feel like we belong. THE BLUE HOUR builds a labyrinth of surprises, which deliver through to the very last page." - Danya Kukafka, author of Notes on an Execution

"Wow! Paula Hawkins has created another stunning, intensely moody tale of suspense and psychological insight. I read THE BLUE HOUR in one day, utterly mesmerized, but it's much more than a twisty nail-biter. It's a masterful exploration of the nature of obsession and a fascinating portrayal of an artist's creative process and legacy. I loved it." --- Angie Kim, New York Times bestselling author of Happiness Falls and Miracle Creek

'A superb, powerful read.' - Independent (London)

'I LOVED this art-world-set thriller with its stately-home Saltburn vibe....Hawkins weaves a skillful tale about class and privilege and keeps up the tension until the very end.' - Daily Mail (London)

'A masterpiece! Gorgeous and chilling.' - Shari Lapena

"Reminiscent of du Maurier: art, islands, missing spouses ... A compelling piece of work, hard to put down." - Mick Herron

'Hawkins keeps her cast tight, her wild setting ominous, and her plot moving fast...propulsive.' - Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

'The author of The Girl on the Train combines a murder mystery with an exploration of an artist's troubled inner life in this elegiac novel.' - Sunday Times (London)

'This is a fine, insidious thriller, an elegantly calibrated story of sexual jealousy and artistic passion' - Mail on Sunday

"The stormy Atlantic Ocean inspires a troubled artist and swallows up a few sins in a fine new novel by Paula Hawkins, who's best known for her debut, The Girl on the Train. Three books later, she's elevated her game with The Blue Hour, a disturbing, elegant, and psychologically probing inquiry into the final years of a troubled artist and the mess she left behind." - Lisa Henricksson, Airmail