The Swimming Pool

by Holly LeCraw

A heartbreaking affair, an unsolved murder, an explosive welcome to summer on the Cape in this powerful debut.

Seven summers ago, Marcella Atkinson fell in love with Cecil McClatchey, a married father of two. But on the same night their romance abruptly ended, Cecil's wife was found murdered—and their lives changed forever. The case was never solved, and Cecil died soon after, an uncharged suspect.

Now divorced and estranged from her only daughter, Marcella lives alone, mired in grief and guilt. Meanwhile, Cecil's grown son, Jed, returns to the Cape with his sister for the first time in years. One day he finds a woman's bathing suit buried in a closet—a relic, unbeknownst to him, of his father's affair—and, on a hunch, confronts Marcella. When they fall into an affair of their own, their passion temporarily masks the pain of the past, but also leads to crises and revelations they never could have imagined.

In what is sure to be the debut of the season, The Swimming Pool delivers a sensuous narrative of such force and depth that you won't be able to put it down.

Genres: Fiction, Mystery, Book Club, Mystery Thriller, Adult Fiction, Audiobook, Family

307 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2010

About the author

Holly LeCraw was born and raised in Atlanta, granddaughter of a former mayor and daughter of the founder of Oxford Book Store, where she worked throughout high school. She graduated from Duke University and later received a master's in English from Tufts University. She now lives outside of Boston with her husband and three children.

Her debut novel, The Swimming Pool, was a Top Debut of 2010 (Kirkus) and a Best Book of Summer (The Daily Beast and Good Morning America). Other work has appeared in Post Road and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She is at work on her next novel, The Half Brother, which will also be published by Doubleday.

Reviews

[Debbie Zapata · Rating 1 out of 5]

Maybe it's my current mood, maybe it is the book itself, I am not certain. But I could not get interested in the characters here, or the plot itself. Another DNF.

We have Marcella, who was married to Anthony and had a daughter when she began an affair with Cecil, who was also married and had two children, a son and a daughter. One night while Cecil and Marcella were entertaining themselves, Cecil's wife is murdered. He is a suspect, but dies in a one-car accident soon afterwards, leaving the murder unsolved and Marcella with the knowledge that Cecil could not have murdered his wife.
Divorce follows, years pass, and up turns Jed, Cecil's son. Who had a huge lust for the much older Marcella back in the days of innocence. They become involved after he finds her old swimsuit in his family's attic and for some reason goes to her house to....well, he doesn't know at the time why he goes but they hop into bed right away and she is all he can think of after that.

This is about as far as I cared to go here. Jed is constantly thinking 'when can I get back to Marcella', Marcella is telling herself she is a dirty woman, and Anthony (who is Marcella's ex-husband with custody of their daughter) is remembering how he finally felt on their wedding day that he had triumphed over his brothers and father. I wanted a mystery, not a session on the analyst's couch told in confusing flashbacks. Maybe it all gets better later, but that will be for other readers to discover, not for me.

[Paula · Rating 1 out of 5]

Hmmm...what to say about this book. It sounded interesting and I was looking forward to reading it - the plot was a seven year old murder that somehow was tangled around the lives of two different families, a clandestine love affair and summer on Cape Cod. Sounded intriguing. What I found was a disjointed novel describing the events that lead up to the murder, interspersed with present-day drama from the families involved. I felt that the author didn't do a good job of jumping from one time frame to another or from one character to another. It seemed very abrupt.

Betsy was the woman murdered; I felt nothing for her as her character was not given any time or depth. Marcella, the woman having an affair with the murdered woman's husband, is now, seven years later, having an affair with the murdered woman's son since his father had died of heartbreak after the murder. Can you say yuck? I kept reading, thinking the plot would redeem itself, but towards the end, I found myself just skimming so that the pain would end.

[Audrey · Rating 3 out of 5]

NOTE: I actually give this book 3 1/2 stars.

It's really hard for me to know what to say about this book. On the one hand, I quite liked it. The story was fresh and interesting, the writing style was slightly poetic and beautiful, and the characters were complex and, well, not likable, but enjoyable. It was easily read, easily enjoyed, and and the time passed by nicely while I was reading.

Which makes me want to call this a fluff read. While I was reading, I felt like it jumped out at me and screamed "AVERAGE!" On the surface, it seemed as if there was nothing special about this book; just another book for a 20 or 30 (or even 40) something woman to read while taking a leisurely break from life.

It doesn't draw you in, you probably won't be thinking about the characters for a long time after it's over, and in my case, I was actually trying to think of what books I'd read recently that I could review today, and it didn't come to mind until I looked at my shelf (for the record, I finished it three days ago). I mean, there was nothing about it that made it stick out in my thoughts.

And yet, there is SOMETHING about it, though I can't really place my finger on what. The characters are just a little bit more complex than you except them to be, the plot line takes a few more twists and turns than you expect it to, and there are quite a few subtleties and intricacies to the plot that aren't immediately apparent. The characters go through a lot over the course of the book, and thinking back now, I'm feeling like I wasn't being an active enough reader. I passively let the book go by, never feeling a connection with any of the characters, but if I had been more invested in it, I believe that I could have felt the true depth of the characters misery, of what they had suffered.

Of course, the fact that I am only realizing that now, after having finished the book, makes me feel like I must have missed something, and I'm intrigued enough to think about going back and reading it again sometime soon. I think that anyone who chooses to read this book will enjoy it, as I did, but I highly recommend putting forth a little bit of energy into the reading process in order to get all that Holly LeCraw has to offer with the Swimming Pool.

[Chocolate & Croissants · Rating 2 out of 5]

is a book I should have liked, (family secrets, an unsolved mystery, illicit affairs, romance) but did not. Now I did not dislike it enough to put it down and just stop reading it. I had to finish it. It was almost like a bad relationship. You know you should walk away-you just cannot. You keep on going back for more. I liked parts of the book and then disliked it. Liked it again, disliked it. Yet I needed to know how it finished.

I found the book to be rather disjointed and distracted. It took awhile for me to figure out the characters in the book and their relationship between each other. Each time you learnt a little more about the characters and the role they played it seemed that the author took you in a different direction not quite giving you enough information. I also found that when different character was introduced their place did not seem to fit into the story.

So why did I not just throw the book into the junked pile? I cannot really tell you why-there was something about the book that kept on pulling me into the story line. I wanted to know how the characters came together and what happened to them.

[Andrea · Rating 2 out of 5]

The Swimming Pool was an okay book, but was underdeveloped, and difficult to connect to. The story never really reels you in, excited for more. Marcella, the protagonist, is a depressing, self-loathing, over emotional, selfish, immoral woman, making it very difficult to like her, want her to come out winning in the end. The problem in the story is also unclear, is it the murder, the messed up relationships? Then the resolution to the "problem" is very quick, and lack luster. It could be considered a mystery, but there are not the little clues that lead you along the way, making you wonder how the mystery is solved. Because the morals of the characters are so skewed, sick really, you want them to do the right thing, and they never do. There are layers of infertility, infidelity, lack of self esteem, and postpartum, but none of which go deep enough to really get into. Not a terrible read, but not one that I would recommend to anyone.

[Shannon · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book could have been better. The premise was very good - a young man (Jed)finds a bathing suit secreted away in his family's summer home closet and realizes that it doesn't belong to his mother but to a woman (Marcella) that he admired from afar as a young man. The affair between Marcella and Jed's father and the resulting murder of Jed's mother (Betsy) are all intertwined in this book.

I found parts of the story gripping - but the timeframe that it was supposed to have taken place remained pretty unclear as well as the ages and descriptions of the characters involved. The story just seemed kind of fuzzy to me. I was not fond of the ending - just felt like it left me hanging.

Won this book in the giveaways - wouldn't really recommend or not - it was just ok.

[Holly · Rating 2 out of 5]

Like a few other reviewers, I felt that this was a book that I should have liked more but didn't. The characters were well developed but I couldn't find one that I actually liked or related to. At the same time, once I had met them all I felt compelled to read through to the end to see how things turned out...or what they put themselves and each other through, to be more accurate. Jed and Callie are brother and sister, both haunted by their parents deaths. marcella was their father's mistress and becomes Jed's mistress as well...all while Marcella's daughter is the nanny for Callie's newborn. A little convoluted and close to incestuous but overall not something I would highly recommend. The writing wasn't bad but the story and the characters just weren't likeable.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

Following the birth of her second child, Callie McClatchey returns to the home where she spent her summers, persuades her brother Jed to join her and hires old family friend Toni Atkinson as a summer time nanny. While cleaning out a closet in the old house, Jed stumbles across an old swimsuit that belongs to Toni's mother, Marcella. Perplexed as to why the swimsuit is there in a box, Jed returns to it Marcella and discovers she carried on an affair with her father, which was broken off the night their mother was killed. The father has since died and the culprit was never caught, though the father was a prime suspect. Jed is attracted to Marcella and enters into an affair with her, all while spurning the advances of her daughter and not telling his sister and husband who he's sneaking off to see each weekend.

In a lot of ways, it sounds like a plot ripped from the latest episode of a soap opera, but Holly LeCraw makes all the pieces work well enough that it never feels too much like a soap opera. The drama is high and we slowly find out what happened the summer leading up to the death of Jed and Callie's mother as well as seeing Callie's current struggles as a new mom. LeCraw does a nice job of keeping the narrative moving, solving the mysteries involves and looking at the impact the various relationships are having on the characters--both then and now.

The story is a tragedy as events are set into motion. Even as you shake your head at what a colossally bad idea it is for Jed and Marcella to become romantically involved, LeCraw pulls you into the sense of excitement at the forbidden and new nature of the affair. From the first page we know this won't end well, but the journey itself is worth taking and LeCraw does a good job of letting things unfold as they will. She also avoids overly dramatic moments during the course of the story (though Toni does have a few of her own in the book) and instead creates an authentic feeling universe and situation for these characters to inhabit.

It's an intriguing first novel and one that leaves me curious to see where LeCraw will go next as an author .

[bibanon1 · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received an advance copy of this book from the publisher.


There have been many many books over the years that deal with the subject of adultery and one could say that there isn't much left to tell on the subject. With THE SWIMMING POOL, I was pleasantly surprised to find that indeed there IS more to say. Seven years before, Marcella Atkinson had an affair with Cecil McClatchey, a fellow vacationer at the group of summer homes on the Cape. On the night that their affair ended, Cecil's wife is murdered and Cecil dies a scant year later. Fast forward to the present day. Old feelings are dredged up when Marchella's teenaged daughter Toni begins working as a nanny for Cecil's grown daughter Callie. Callie is in the throws of Perinatal Mood Disorder (formerly known as Post-partum Depression) and has escaped to the Cape in a bid for recovery. Callie's brother Jed is staying with her and finds an old swimsuit belonging to Marcella in their house. He investigates why the swimsuit is there and becomes involved in an affair with Marcella.


This book is complex and interesting with unexpected twists and turns. It reveals how affairs can have wide-ranging effects on the people involved. The characters are well-drawn and the story pulls you in. The reader is caught up not only in the affair between Marcella and her former lover's son but also the mystery surrounding Betsy McClatchey's death and how no one has really been able to move forward since that fateful night. I was also moved by the excellent portrayal of Perinatal Mood Disorder. Having suffered from this disorder myself, I thought LeCraw offered up a very accurate and moving example of this problem in Callie. That may have been my favorite storyline within the book.


BOTTOM LINE: Highly recommended. A wonderful story of the long-ranging effects of betrayal and family secrets. Very compelling and hard to put down.

[Laurel-Rain · Rating 4 out of 5]

The devastation and aftermath of family tragedy is at the heart of this story.

It begins around a swimming pool on a hot summer day in a village on Cape Cod. We meet friends, but specifically, we zero in on two couples: Cecil and Betsy and Anthony and Marcella.

What happens over the next few weeks and months will forever alter all their lives. First, inexplicably, Cecil and Marcella begin an affair.

Then later, on a November evening, death greets Betsy when she arrives home after an outing with friends.

Who is guilty of murder, and what set this chain of events in motion?

Years later, Marcella and Anthony are divorced. Cecil, too, has died, presumably of a heart attack. And Callie, a grown daughter of Cecil and Betsy has returned to the family's summer home. Soon, her brother Jed follows, to help her out while her husband is in the city during the week. She has just given birth to her second child, and she is obviously struggling.

Then Jed, who has been obsessed with Marcella ever since that first summer, begins an affair with her in her summer house a few miles away.

The past, the present, and the uncertain future all collide as events seemingly link together and questions are finally answered. Some questions, however, will always remain a mystery. And the guilt that blankets all their lives will forever remain in place.

At times I found it difficult to follow the transitions between the past and the present, but the story itself was compelling enough that I kept reading rapidly toward the ending. I would grant "The Swimming Pool" 4.5 stars.

[Maree · Rating 4 out of 5]

*Disclosure: I received this book in a Goodreads First Reads giveaway.

So. I did a bad thing and judged this book by its cover. I thought it was going to be pretty medium, and while it turned out better than I had expected, it still didn't garner a 5 star read from me. But the cover version I had seriously made it seem like a self-published gig, so I'm glad to see better version images online.

The story was sadly beautiful, well written and fully fleshed with real characters. I was mostly drawn into their lives, and I really enjoyed the way the story jumped as necessary from the current time into the past to reveal new information that brought greater depth to the story. However, there were times where it could be confusing as to which time we were in.

While I went through the book pretty quickly and was interested in what was going on and what had occurred in the past, now that I've finished the book I'm left feeling a little empty. While the story and characters were beautiful, I don't feel changed by them or their experiences, which didn't feel altogether unique to me. So while it was an excellent read, I don't know that it was a very memorable one.

[Mindy Detweiler · Rating 1 out of 5]

My Take: I tried to like this book I really did. But as is so often the case whenever everyone seems to LOVE a book I really just didn't get the whole thing. Was the writing good? yeah Was the story good? Eh. I could not find myself liking any of the characters whatsoever. I sympathized with Callie alittle bit but I really just wanted to slap her and tell her to grow up (although I know post partum depression is a real thing as I had it myself ) I just found her very whiny. Jed, I felt was just trying to compete with his father in some way and I found Marcella the least likable person in the whole book. I really found the whole lot of them a spoiled rich people who did whatever they wanted and didn't really care about who they hurt in the process.



As I said other have liked this book and it is not a book that I would tell anyone to run away screaming from but it definately wasn't my cup of tea.



I received a copy of the book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

[Jessica · Rating 3 out of 5]

I won this through the first-reads program, and while I did not love it, I didn't hate it either. After the rave reviews, I had truthfully expected a little more.

Overall, it was just pretty good. The characters, for the most part, were interesting enough and I enjoyed all of the psychology - inner thoughts and reasoning - that LeCraw weaved throughout the story. I just felt that the book left me with unanswered questions - big ones. Perhaps this was the author's intent, but I would have rather seen more of a finite conclusion than such open-endedness. Any semblance of mystery that there was to this book, was weak and predictable, and for me, a few of the sexual scenes were a bit too descriptive when it came to female anatomy. However, the dynamics common in today's families was insightful and real, which was what earned this book my respect and kept me reading clear through to the end.

[Sherie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Let's see, unrequited love times 3 or was it 4? Add post partum depression, a murder, and orphaned children.
Why can't authors have protagonist women who age gracelessly - who carry around a spare tire, sagging breasts, age spotted hands, thinning, dull hair? I find it difficult to connect with someone who has done lots of things wrong in her life, but still manages to stop conversations at cocktail parties with her ageless beauty.

[Marianne K · Rating 2 out of 5]

The book begins with two well-to-do families who summer every year on Cape Cod. They start out being connected through socializing which leads to an affair and a murder. While I found the writing beautiful I did not care for any of the characters and just could not believe the affair between Marcella and Jed. It just never rang true to me, which doomed the book for me as this affair is integral to the plot. I'd certainly read another work by the author, but can't recommend this book.

[Karen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gripping story.

[Shea Lancaster · Rating 2 out of 5]

Random pick at the library that didn’t really work in my favor. It was okay, but never really got better than that.

[Julie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Though the overarching concept surrounding The Swimming Pool (the somewhat incestuous and tragically intertwined lives of two bored upper middle class families, who happen to summer in the sleepy Northern beach community) is nothing new, author Holly LeCraw treats her characters with a surprising sensitivity, and an almost complete lack of irony.

This isn't one of those "Wow, suburbanites are so vapid and shallow" books. And while many of LeCraw's characters do some very reprehensible things in the context of the novel, the author steps into each of their heads dutifully, and without judgment. (To be honest, I wouldn't have minded a bit more humor and judgment. But that's just me.)

Where I think The Swimming Pool succeeds most is its character development. LeCraw has this refreshingly fluid (like a "swimming pool") and almost lyrical writing style, that helps you move seamlessly from the mind of one character to another. And though some characters tend to be more likeable and relatable than others (I, personally, found it much easier to get into the heads of the broody Jed and affable Cecil, than the steely, perpetually angry Anthony, or the often-caustic, and secretly troubled Callie.), they all feel remarkably real.

For the first half of the book, I was sold. I enjoyed delving into the minds of these physically beautiful and emotionally complex people, as they lusted after one another, had earth-shattering sex, battled with their consciences, and wondered why they were still so miserably unhappy. But somewhere in the middle, what had started out as "new and exciting," gradually devolved into "just more of the same." I simply didn't see a lot of growth in these characters, who (with the exception of having a lot of great sex) seemed to spend more time THINKING about doing things than actually doing them.

As many other reviewers have mentioned, I found the revelations relating to the mysteries surrounding the novel, and its conclusion a bit unsatisfying. Was it realistic? Sure. Not everything in life has a clear beginning, middle and end. And "The Swimming Pool" is, at it's core, a "slice of life" type book.

But I guess in reading, I tend to look for something more finite and conclusive, when I arrive at the last page . . . a belly flop, swan dive, or cannon ball . . . Here, I just got turned right back around to where I started . . . and told to swim another lap.

[Ellene · Rating 4 out of 5]

Time flew while reading this book. LeCraw's writing is elegant and smooth, and she sets up the story well with enough background to get the reader into the story. At the same time, LeCraw manages to keep key points in the storyline hidden until she's ready to reveal them. The juxtaposition between different time periods (past and present) was a bit hard to follow at certain points but once the characters were established, it was much easier.

The intertwined lives of the Atkinson's and the McClatchey's are both sad and eventually tragic but altogether human--which keeps you engaged until the very end. The love affair between Marcella and Cecil is described with a realism that speaks to the "why" of affairs, outside of the passion that often overshadows everything else. However, that between Marcella and Jed seems a bit harder to figure out. But perhaps that's the beauty of it, because there are often relationships that have no "why" but just "are". All the other characters revolve around these but in a way that cannot be denied--even as each of them tries to deny some truth in life in order to continue to live. How they grow and evolve is both gratifying and depressing, as they manage to us reflect how we all change and stay the same in different ways.

This is not a happy novel in many respects, so you may need to be in the right mood to really enjoy it. However, highly recommend putting this book on your to read list.

[Caitlin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a wonderfully written book about all the ways our actions can have unintended consequences. The story of an affair and the ripples it leaves in the water, Ms. LeCraw has given us spare and beautiful prose to tell a story that contains equal parts tragedy and joy.

Set variously in Cape Cod and Atlanta, the book tells the story of two families, interconnected by an affair and the events in its aftermath. It is also the story of Jed and Callie, brother and sister, orphaned and spending the summer together - each supporting the other as best they can. Callie's battle with postpartum depression, Jed's inability to connect to anyone, and the way the two keep getting up in the morning and putting one foot in front of the other make them both admirable and interesting characters - neither is perfect, but both are very real.

Less well drawn are Marcella, her ex-husband Anthony, and daughter Toni - a family broken apart by Marcella's affair with Callie and Jed's father. The connections between these three people are so very tenuous and the characterization of Marcella, a major character in the book, feels half-finished - this is one flaw of an otherwise beautiful story.

The plot of this book isn't what makes it special - it's the writing and the characters - read it for that.

[Julia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Summers on Cape Cod are a family tradition for Jed and his sister Callie, but when Callie seems desperate for extra support after the birth of her second child, Jed takes leave from his job in the city to come out to the summer house. Being at the cape brings fond memories of summers at the beach, playing tennis and hosting parties by the pool, but Jed is also reminded of the tragedies his family endured, which put an end to their carefree way of life. When rummaging through a closet one day, he finds a small box containing an old bathing suit and is stunned. He remembers vividly who wore it.

Marcella lives alone in the cape town of Mashantum, busy with her garden, her cooking and her independence. She thinks only occasionally of her ex-husband Anthony, and desires that her teenage daughter Toni would visit more frequently, but is otherwise content. She avoids thinking of the painful secrets of the past until one day she answers a knock at the door to find Jed.

The Swimming Pool was a page-turner -- captivating and compelling. I was rooting for Marcella and Jed, despite the seemingly doomed and futile nature of their relationship. I'd recommend it as a beach read, partly because of the setting, if you don't mind a bit of tragedy and sadness coupled with your romance.

[Susan Coleman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although I did finish this book, at many times I didn't want to. The first time was at the beginning, when character names were being thrown out and it took some time to determine the relationships between them. Also, they all seem to be dealing with the same issues - guilt and shame. Those two themes run through the book a little too often. Some variation would have been nice, someone without those fatal flaws. About the only character who seemed to have eluded the depths of the others' indiscretions was Cecil's wife Betsy, and she was unfortunately drawn as the victim, the recipient of the horrors that should have been leveled at just about any of the others. But what really disappointed me was the lack of outrage and disgust by the various confessions made to the various characters: Marcella admits to the affair with Cecil, and Cecil's son Jed is nonplussed; Anthony admits to hiring a contract killer to do Cecil in, and Marcella seems only mildly put off by this. I just didn't buy the characters after these scenes.

The writing is nice, though I found it a little awkward at times. Not sure I would recommend this book - at best as an in-between read when something is needed that's not going to draw you in too strongly.

[Greenfairylv · Rating 4 out of 5]

Holly LeCraw is a mastermind at creating characters. The loneliness, the innocent, the lusting, the betrayed and hurting characters are so well written you can't hate them. You sense what has driven each character to the place they are today and even though you might find some of them morally wrong it is hard to pass judgment on them when you hear how tortured they are within their own minds and how they just long to be punished.
Jed's sister, Callie, I found particularly interesting. She was in college, just as Jed, when she lost her mother. Now with the lose of both parents and the arrival of a new baby, life has just swallowed her whole. This is a character I would normally hate but Holly wrote her so well I could understand her maddening world she was living in.
A book of mystery. Just when every character seems to have gotten their answers and some sort of peace the book takes a twist and nothing is what it seems.
Perfect beach and summer read full of mystery, love, desperation of believable characters.

[Theresa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Somewhat of a summer romance and mystery, The Swimming Pool was quite well written and followed two families and a summer at the Cape. A nice summer theme with a beach and summer homes, would interest most for a quick summer read.


Personally, I didn't care for the book. I'm not big on soap operas and for me, this storyline had the same qualities as a daytime soap. With a "Cougar", a love triangle that I found pretty distasteful, and numerous descriptive sex scenes, I just got bored with the whole affair. Had there been less sex, I probably would have liked it more.


The cast of characters were interesting but I found that I didn't like any of them. The storyline contained exciting elements: murder, mystery, affairs, romance, and depression. One review (from the back of the book) says "as riveting and psychologically complex as Hitchcockian film noir". That's what drew me to wanting to read the book.


Parental note: I would not recommend this for teens. Book contains offensive language, descriptive sex scenes, murder, depression, attempted suicide.

[Mary BookHounds · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the perfect summer read even if you are stuck in the house since it is raining. The Swimming Pool is a murder-mystery-character driven story with a lot of twists and turns. I had thought that with so many books about adultery and the consequences of it had been done to death, but this one goes beyond the typical family drama. It is hard to describe the story without giving away the plot, so all I am going to say is: READ THIS.

Holly LeCrew has also won the Pushcart prize and I am now looking for other authors with this award. I have found that it is a great barometer of the unique writing styles that I love.

[Emily · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book was interesting enough to read until the end but not great. It was like there was a pink elephant in the room for the longest time in the beginning. The author refused to let the reader in. I think she should have started with Jed visiting Marcella and let the first chapters come after that one. The beginning was slow and confusing and hard to get into. While the end improved it still left the murder unsolved...not a fan of that! And to have a character have an affair with a man and later on his son....just wrong, ew.

[K2 ----- · Rating 4 out of 5]

A well-paced read. I am not a big fiction reader but I always enjoy a first novel. It was recommended to me and it was a great airplane read. I see great things ahead for this author if she continues to publish. The story has twists and turns and keeps the reader going until the very last page. I find it unfortunate when writers feel the need to kill one or two characters off to give them grist for the mill but her writing made me forgive this first novelist's cliche. I am sure it will be a very popular paperback book and summer read.

[Amanda Ishtayeh · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book about two screwed up families! I think it would make the perfect book club discussion book. The ending is somewhat of a bore but overall it was well written. I would have liked someone from the book to have done the murder but that is the grotesque in me coming out! LOL!

[Waleska Soto · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great story, page-turner. Vivid story about love, betrayal, lies that had a ripple effect destroying both families, Marcella's and her lover's, Cecil. The book was confusing at times going between Marcella's past memories and her present. The ending of the book was disappointing.

[Joni · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very slow beginning. Hard to keep my interest. Plots and people really jumped around. Started to build up towards the end and went back down to a boring ending. Not a book to pass on.