Family Drama

“Magnificent.” —Clare Leslie Hall, New York Times bestselling author of Broken Country A vibrant debut and powerful meditation on family, motherhood, and the cost of holding on to your dreams, reminiscent of Ann Napolitano. In New England, Susan Bliss is a young mother married to a professor. In LA, Susan Byrne stars in a soap opera beloved coast to coast. Decades after she’s gone, her twins have no idea of their mother’s fame. But the past can’t stay hidden forever. It’s 1997, and snow is blanketing a New England beach. Two befuddled seven-year-olds watch as their mother’s body is tipped overboard a crumbling boat. A Viking funeral, followed by a raucous wake. A send-off fit for soap opera star: Susan Bliss. Fifteen years earlier, Susan is a blazing, beautiful young woman, passionate about her art. It’s impossible not to fall in love with her, and so Alcott, a practical professor, does—hopelessly.