Alyssa, née Alice, Macallen, has changed her name and subjugated everything else about herself to please her unpleasable husband, Bill, who has left with no explanation. All Alyssa knows for sure is that he’s taking his wealth with him and she has no job and no prenup, which he insisted was unnecessary because he was going to love her forev—you know the rest. Anyway, Bill’s gone and Alyssa’s sitting in a hotel bar nursing her sorrows when she meets a woman who may be even worse off. Bree Lorrance is living at the hotel after getting away from an abusive boyfriend. She moves into Alyssa’s guest house, and soon readers and Alyssa are wondering how things have taken such a fast turn. Far from lonely and terrifying, Alyssa’s days are now taken up with helping her friend, who encounters a new tragedy that sets the women, and another player who becomes involved and moves in, on an exciting trajectory. We’re left wondering whom Alyssa can trust in her new life, if anyone. Are some of these strange new people part of Bill’s team or out to get her for some other reason? Or maybe Alyssa is making everything up and we’ve got an unreliable narrator on our hands…it’s impossible to know until Ryan brings all to a satisfying ending that readers will never see coming. The author’s fans will snap this up; it’s also a must for Liane Moriarty’s readers.
