It’s finally time for Alice McBain’s complicated story to be told. Her life was blown apart somewhat by the events of the Christmas storm, when some of her and her friends kids got together, and her secret was revealed. She has been involved with another woman, Marilyn, the Mayor of Tuckaway Bay, and is also her boss. Marilyn is running a campaign to become a state senator and has asked Alice to wait until the campaign and election was over, before she divorces her husband, George. Neither of their husbands know about their affair and it has been going on for over twelve years. As well as working as Marilyn’s assistant in the mayor’s office, she has also been helping run her election campaign, and matters have been getting stressful. Alice has asked George for a divorce, something he doesn’t want and her daughter Ella is off to college, so she was hoping to spend time with Ella before she left at the end of the summer. Living in a small town, news of her impending divorce has already spread. Alice is tired of waiting for things to ever settle down and her life with Marilyn to actually begin, instead of only having stolen moments together. She wants the life she has been dreaming of for years, but it soon implodes as a vicious political rival plays dirty.
Just as she pushes for a new life, everything crumbles as she loses her job and her work on the campaign suddenly becomes her new life. But nothing is as simple as that, as blackmail pushes her and Marilyn’s decisions and next steps. When matters get even worse for Alice and her emotional state makes her take an unexpected step, which will backfire in the future. Her week away to meet up with her old college friends, Maggie, Lia and Julia, a standing beach week the women have continued since they went to college and beyond, is threatened by Marilyn and that doesn’t go down well. Alice refuses to give up her week away with her friends and the façade of her relationship with Marilyn implodes. She gets away to the beach, but the fallout from her secret relationship with Marilyn, soon follows her to the beach. Blackmail material is released to the press and her family life is sent into chaos beyond her control. Both Alice’s and Marilyn’s long held secrets are out in the open and the hope of Marilyn’s rivals were to force her to quit her campaign! Alice had to make her own decisions about her life and her relationship with her family, as she struggles to make sense of what she wants to do now everything has been thrown out into the open. She had always been the mother hen and the one that did everything else for others first, instead of looking out for herself. Finally choosing to put herself first, brings with it lots of heartache and deep thinking about she wants for her future, and just what exactly she thinks of as love and who she wants to love! It will bring a few surprises as well, with matters possibly not being settled as one might expect. And an unexpected visit from the other two former college friends, who have been missing in action for the last two summer beach week experiences. I can’t wait for their story coming at long last, but also loved how Alice finally realised she might have to put herself first for once, if she was ever to have a life she deserved.
I received an ARC copy of this book from BookSprout and I have freely given my own opinion of the book above.