Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks (March 3, 2020)

In the tradition of Daphne du Maurier, Shari Lapena, and Michelle Richmond comes a new thriller from the bestselling author of The Lake of Dead Languages—a twisty, harrowing story set at a prestigious prep school in which one woman’s carefully hidden past might destroy her future.

Tess has worked hard to keep her past buried, where it belongs. Now she’s the wife to a respected professor at an elite boarding school, where she also teaches. Her seventeen-year-old son, Rudy, whose dark moods and complicated behavior she’s long worried about, seems to be thriving: he has a lead role in the school play and a smart and ambitious girlfriend. Tess tries not to think about the mistakes she made eighteen years ago, and mostly, she succeeds.

And then one more morning she gets a text at 2:50 AM: it’s Rudy, asking for help. When Tess picks him up she finds him drenched and shivering, with a dark stain on his sweatshirt. Four hours later, Tess gets a phone call from the Haywood school headmistress: Lila Zeller, Rudy’s girlfriend, has been found dead on the beach, not far from where Tess found Rudy just hours before.

As the investigation into Lila’s death escalates, Tess finds her family attacked on all sides. What first seemed like a tragic accidental death is turning into something far more sinister, and not only is Tess’s son a suspect but her husband is a person of interest too. But Lila’s death isn’t the first blemish on Haywood’s record, and the more Tess learns about Haywood’s fabled history, the more she realizes that not all skeletons will stay safely locked in the closet.

 

My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

 

I could feel the waves of emotion radiating off her like blast waves from an explosion.

 

It’s called a tuck box, my mother had told me, it’s what all the kids take to boarding school. As if I were going to Hogwarts and not being sent away in shame.

 

It’s the quickest, lightest touch of the lips on mine, but it shifts something in me, like the moon pulling an internal tide.  

  

My Review:

 

Goodreads lists twenty-four novels after this talented wordsmith’s name, and shame on me, this is the first one I have chanced to pick up. It was fantastic! The premise and writing style were gripping, unfailingly intriguing, super twisty.   The compelling storylines hosted a bevy of unlikable yet curiously enticing and prickly characters that kept my curiosity lashed to a well-honed edge and made me itch, as they were either close to or well over the edge of being… icky, but that was not always readily apparent.   I cringed, flinched, chewed my cuticles and wanted to hiss at any interruption that dared to disrupt my perusal. Sigh, Ms. Goodman has a rabid fangirl on her hands. More, please!

I was provided with a review copy of this unusually absorbing tale by HarperCollins and TLC Book Tours.

Carol Goodman is the critically acclaimed author of fourteen novels, including The Lake of Dead Languages and The Seduction of Water, which won the 2003 Hammett Prize. Her books have been translated into sixteen languages. She lives in the Hudson Valley with her family, and teaches writing and literature at the New School and SUNY New Paltz.

Find out more about Carol on her website, and connect with her on Facebook and Instagram.