The Lavender Rhino
Bath Haus: A Thriller
Bath Haus: A Thriller
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Author: P. J. Vernon
ISBN: 9780593311318
Tags: Gay, Mystery/Thriller
Nominated for a 34th annual Lambda Literary Award • A scintillating thriller with an emotional punch: “The tension builds to unbearably claustrophobic levels. To say more would rob readers of the ‘no, he didn’t’ suspense that makes Bath Haus an unexpectedly twisted, heart-pounding cat-versus-mouse thriller” (Los Angeles Times).
Oliver Park, a recovering addict from Indiana, finally has everything he ever wanted: sobriety and a loving, wealthy partner in Nathan, a prominent DC trauma surgeon. Despite their difference in age and disparate backgrounds, they’ve made a perfect life together. With everything to lose, Oliver shouldn’t be visiting Haus, a gay bathhouse. But through the entrance he goes, and it’s a line crossed. Inside, he follows a man into a private room, and it’s the final line. Whatever happens next, Nathan can never know. But then, everything goes wrong, terribly wrong, and Oliver barely escapes with his life.
He races home in full-blown terror as the hand-shaped bruise grows dark on his neck. The truth will destroy Nathan and everything they have together, so Oliver does the thing he used to do so well: he lies.
What follows is a classic runaway-train narrative, full of the exquisite escalations, edge-of-your-seat thrills, and oh-my-god twists. P. J. Vernon’s Bath Haus is perfect for readers curious for their next must-read novel.
“The great age of the gay thriller has arrived!!!”—CrimeReads
“As taut as a tightrope. Each twist in this tale of a tryst gone very, very wrong spins the plot into a new and daring direction.” —Riley Sager, New York Times bestselling author of Survive the Night
“Bath Haus is the gay one night stand from hell—thrilling!” —Silvia Moreno-Garcia, New York Times bestselling author of Velvet Was the Night
“It’s like if your worst nightmare—and sexual fantasy—came true at the same time…You won’t be able to put it down.” —Eric Cervini, New York Times bestselling author of The Deviant’s War
“Gone Girl + Grindr is all you need to know. But if that’s not enough, imagine if your worst hookup story turned into an attempted murder and a runaway-train thriller chase…Tis the season for a healthy dose of visceral anxiety.” —Queerty
“Oliver risks it all at a bathhouse, unleashing a nightmarish spiral of events that won’t stop in this chilling, compulsively readable tale.” —Newsweek, Best Books of 2021
“A nightmarish white-knuckler about the tenuous relationship between stability and control.” —O, The Oprah Magazine
“A white-knuckle ride to the dark side of infidelity. . .Bath Haus [is] a smart, steamy thriller laced with heady questions about control and shame.” —Daniel Nieh, The New York Times Book Review
“A wildly entertaining thriller with twists and tension to spare.”—Entertainment Weekly
“Terrifying.”—The New York Post
“The tension builds to unbearably claustrophobic levels. To say more would rob readers of the ‘no, he didn’t’ suspense that makes “Bath Haus” an unexpectedly twisted, heart-pounding cat-versus-mouse thriller.” —Los Angeles Times
“This is the perfect novel for those looking for the proverbial ‘beach read’. . .Suspenseful, sensual, and exceedingly clever, this thriller is the literary equivalent of sipping a glass of white wine while listening to your neighbors have a lovers’ spat . . . before one of them picks up a knife. Vernon has an electric style that leaps off the page.”—The Washington Post
“What makes Bath Haus so engaging is that Vernon gives Oliver many layers. He’s not superficial or hedonistic or merely foolish. You can’t write him off…Vernon knows how to grab you from the first line and not let go; he also knows that plot means nothing without a character we can root for, even when he’s making terrifyingly dangerous choices.” —Lambda Literary
“[An] adrenaline-soaked pulse-pounder.” —The New York Times
“It’s refreshing to see a man on the sharp end of the casual sex has its consequences stick, but Vernon is not just making a sociological point. He has presented us with an enticingly dark and twisted set up, and boy does he play it out.” —CrimeReads, Best Psychological Thrillers of 2021
“Absorbing and exciting. . .Bath Haus is not just excellent gay fiction . . . [It’s] a deftly written suspenseful thriller. It is also a brilliant character study of a disastrously dysfunctional couple.” —The New York Journal of Books
“[Vernon’s] pulse-pounding story of secrets and lies and twists grabbed us from the first page and never lets go.” —Barnes & Noble
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