Blurb
A daughter pushing the limits. A marriage ready to crack. A secret that can break them.
For Emily Rossi, life may not be perfect, but it’s pretty close. She has a great career, a house in the country, a solid marriage to Eric and two wonderful children—tennis superstar Daniel and quiet, sensitive Zara. But when her fourteen-year-old daughter brings home a toxic new best friend, Emily’s seemingly perfect family starts to spiral out of control.
Suddenly Zara is staying out late, taking drugs and keeping bad company. And just when Emily needs Eric to be an involved father, he seems too wrapped up with his job in London to care. What’s more, he’s started drinking again.
When a dark secret from the past emerges, Emily’s life is turned upside down. Struggling to protect the people she loves, can she save her damaged family? Doing so may mean keeping a secret of her own…
The reader is told that the husband in the story has a secret from the outset. From outlookers Eric has the perfect family but it’s all a facade. There are a multitude of cracks tearing their family portrait and it’s barely clinging together. There’s not a lot of drama until you’re well and truly towards the end of the story but it didn’t seem to compensate for the long drawn out first half of the book.
This felt like a fairly predictable domestic read and a good ‘holiday’ read. I’ve read other reviews claiming they thought there was a huge twist in the story but it all felt too easy. It’s a dark book with cracks forming in the various character’s friendships, relationships, home and work lives respectively. It wasn’t easy to keep picking the book up and I felt a bit disappointed that I’d instinctively figured out the ending of the book. Clearly I read too many mystery books.
Having said that, it’s a well written book and one that has an accessible style to read easily. Mason has created realistic characters who are easy to sympathise with. She paints the picture of living with an alcoholic in brutal honesty. The denial, anger and chaos they inflict upon those they love is captured in painful clarity.
Not an easy read but on which shows the importance of telling the truth to our loved ones. Not all little white secrets are as little as they seem.
About Carol Mason
Carol Mason is the Amazon Charts and Kindle #1 bestselling author of After You Left, The Secrets of Married Women, The Last Time We Met, The Shadow Between Us, and Send Me A Lover. She grew up in Sunderland but moved to Canada at the age of 21. She now lives in British Columbia with her husband, Tony, her three-legged cat and a rescue dog from Kuwait. When not working on a new novel, Carol enjoys reading other authors’ brilliant work, and cooking up a storm.
Follow Carol Mason
Books and Bookends 
The family must remain strong،and the father is important
LikeLike