EBOOK

About
The New York Times bestselling author of “The Most Fun We Ever Had” returns with another brilliantly observed family drama in which the enduring, hard-won affection of a long marriage faces immanent derailment from events both past and present.
At fifty-seven, Julia Ames is living an improbably lovely life. Despite her inclination toward self-sabotage and prickly alienation, she has found herself with a husband she loves, two happy children, and a quiet, contented existence in the suburbs. When she bumps into an old friend that she hasn't spoken to in years, a friend who almost ended her marriage decades prior, Julia finds herself reexamining her supposedly happy life. Compounded with a bombshell announcement from her son and her daughter's impending departure for college, this chance meeting threatens to send Julia spinning out of control.
Daunted by a looming empty nest, Julia becomes consumed with her checkered past, and with the chaos of her present. She grapples with a complicated new daughter-in-law, the reappearance of her own estranged mother, and the forbidden allure of rekindling a relationship that was once both her lifeline and her downfall. The novel follows Julia over the course of a few tumultuous months as well as the fifty-plus years that preceded them, from her chaotic childhood in Chicago to her fraught early days of marriage and motherhood.
At fifty-seven, Julia Ames is living an improbably lovely life. Despite her inclination toward self-sabotage and prickly alienation, she has found herself with a husband she loves, two happy children, and a quiet, contented existence in the suburbs. When she bumps into an old friend that she hasn't spoken to in years, a friend who almost ended her marriage decades prior, Julia finds herself reexamining her supposedly happy life. Compounded with a bombshell announcement from her son and her daughter's impending departure for college, this chance meeting threatens to send Julia spinning out of control.
Daunted by a looming empty nest, Julia becomes consumed with her checkered past, and with the chaos of her present. She grapples with a complicated new daughter-in-law, the reappearance of her own estranged mother, and the forbidden allure of rekindling a relationship that was once both her lifeline and her downfall. The novel follows Julia over the course of a few tumultuous months as well as the fifty-plus years that preceded them, from her chaotic childhood in Chicago to her fraught early days of marriage and motherhood.