- Started: January 31, 2021
- Finished: January 31, 2021
- Pages: 306
- Multiple POV, Connecticut
- Rating: 4/5
REVIEW
W0w, this one threw me for a real loop. I finished it a few hours ago and am still processing it. There were so many annoying characters that I had a hard time pushing through it, but I am glad I did because the ending pulled everything together so well. Normally by the time I have 50 pages left, I can get a good sense of how I want the book to end. It doesn’t necessarily mean it’s realistic or what I think will happen, but just a general idea of what would need to transpired in order for me to be happy with the ending. No such case here. I kept getting closer and still was just lost! So many little things from throughout the book that I thought were odd finally clicked once there was the big reveal and I can’t believe it was never even on my radar. This is the third book I’ve read by authors (it’s two sisters writing under one pen name) and I’ve enjoyed them all about the same. I’ll add some more thoughts after the spoilers so I can really expand on all my feelings towards this book.
SUMMARY
This book switches between two points of view: Piper and Joanna. Piper relocates to the East Coast after the death of her husband in California. She is running from her past and sets up shop at a rehabilitation/meditation center, Phoenix Recovery Center. It is there she meets Leo, a handsome lawyer and father of two (Evie and Stelli), looking for some background for a case. Joanna has been with Leo for a long time and is hoping that he will emerge from his depression as he begins to frequent Phoenix Recovery Center. She quickly changes her mind and becomes frustrated when it becomes apparent that Leo’s relationship with Piper extends beyond business. As they decide to move forward with their relationship, Joanna feels forced out of their house and, more importantly, forced out of Evie and Stelli’s lives. Piper settles into her new life with Leo and the kids, struggling to gain their trust and keep her past behind her. Joanna, enraged and in mourning over the loss of her relationship, becomes convinced that Piper is hiding a dangerous past and will stop at nothing to expose Piper and save her family.
SPOILERS BELOW
Piper is immediately enamored with Leo and flirts aggressively with him. Joanna starts spying on them a bit and tries to ward Piper off but to no avail. Unfortunately, things get worse when she is forced back home to take care of her mother who suffers a fall. Her mother is a dependent curmudgeon, blaming all of her issues on her ex-husband who left over 20 years ago and taking out her anger on Joanna. While she is at her mother’s, Leo has all of her belongings dropped off and she is served papers. She is a mess and consults a lawyer who advises her to sign, otherwise there is a chance she’ll never see the kids again. Joanna explains all this to her therapist, Celeste, who is sympathetic but firmly recommends that Joanna starts thinking about her life’s next steps.
Meanwhile, Piper and Leo begin publically dating, spending more and more time together. Leo slowly introduces Evie and Stelli to her; Evie is polite and reserved while Stelli is much more rebellious and vocal about his dislike for her. Piper struggles with accepting his children as well, never having wanted any for herself and having had such a poor relationship with her late husband’s daughter, Mia. She hopes that it will be better with the Leo’s kids as they are younger and will have more time to accept her. She slowly insinuates herself more into their lives, moving in after she and Leo get married. Their wedding day is not at all what they had hope for as Joanna takes the kids out beforehand and they end up at the police station after Joanna swatted Stelli after he ran away and is arrested for child endangerment. Leo tells her it is the last time she will see the kids and she is heartbroken.
After following Piper around town one day, Joanna learns that she used to go by the name Pamela Dunn. She begins researching this other identity and learns that Piper/Pamela’s ex-husband died in a boating accident that also claimed the life of his teenage daughter, Mia. Joanna is suspicious and travels out to California to meet his first wife, Ava. There she meets a woman scorned and in mourning who fosters all the same ill will for Piper that Joanna does. She attempts to get a copy of their marriage certificate but has to wait due to bureaucratic reasons. Ava promises to assist and send her a copy as soon as she can.
Piper is overjoyed with her marriage with Leo but finds that the kids are a sore spot. She feels he continually places them over her and struggles with their outbursts, especially after Stelli gets in trouble at school for telling another child that soon her mother would die. We learn that both Evie and Stelli have been told their mother is dead, but Stelli hopes that, like Jesus, she can return to them. Piper also butts heads with Rebecca, the live in nanny, over everything from the food the kids eat to whether or not Piper is trying to replace their mother. She also clashes with his large, Greek family, when they come over for Thanksgiving. She already knew Leo’s mother felt the marriage was too soon but feels especially put out when she works all day making a feast only for it to be replaced by all the food his family brings. Both Piper and his mother make barbed remarks towards each other and the evening remains awkward.
Once Ava sends Joanna a copy of the marriage license, the women learn that Piper had been married before as well to Evan. Piper still thinks back to Evan and their young love sporadically through her chapters. Evan died in a hiking accident after which Piper inherited his trust fund (she also received a healthy sum after her second husband died as well). Joanna drives to meet his parents who still speak fondly of Piper (or Pamela as they knew her) and afterwards meets Piper’s mom. Piper’s mother is a cold woman who holds no interest in Piper’s current life and wrote her off the day she ran away from home to elope with Evan. Joanna becomes more convinced that she Piper’s background turned her into a vicious black widow.
Joanna brings all this information to Celeste who is increasingly frustrated with the lack of progress Joanna is making. She tries to focus on Joanna’s feelings of abandonment from her father, who left the day after her graduation to be with the other family he had secretly on the side. His departure left her unable to attend college and stuck with her miserable mother. Meanwhile, she learned that is new daughter was much more doted on and he never even revealed that he had had a family before. Joanna continually turns the questions back on Celeste, asking if she has any idea what it’s like to be a parent or if her father helped paid for her college. The sessions overall do not go well.
Things come to a head after Joanna tracks down Rebecca at the grocery store and asks her to please keep her updated on the children. Rebecca reaches out one day noting that Stelli has been getting more stomach aches and they tend to be after he’s had a green smoothie from Piper. This echoes one of Ava’s stories about Piper’s complaints and Joanna is worried that Piper is getting ready to eliminate the children.
THE REVEAL
After Christmas, it had been a tradition for the family to go down to St. Bart’s but Piper convinces Leo it is time for a new tradition and they should go to the vacation house in Maine where they can go hiking and enjoy the family time together. The kids are not thrilled but the family makes the long drive up. Joanna is already there, having been tipped off by Rebecca. She feels this is her last shot to be reunited with Evie and Stelli. She confronts them on the trail and ends up pulling a stun gun in order to get Stelli to go with her. They briefly get away and she ends up pulling a real gun and shooting at Stelli. Piper takes the bullet in her arm as she tackles him out of harm’s way. Joanna is arrested and Piper is taken to the hospital. Joanna was not Leo’s ex-wife or the kids’ mother. Their mother was actually dead, thought to have killed herself after suffering from extended postpartum depression but she was actually pushed off a cliff outside the vacation house by Joanna. Joanna was Leo’s former assistant and became too wrapped up in his and his family’s life, convinced that even though they were not biologically her, the children belonged to her. When she was served papers, it was actually Leo terminating her services. Piper is finally fully accepted into Leo’s family by both Stelli and his mother, so grateful that she finally has the chance to experience the loving home she never had growing up.
Joanna is in jail for her crimes, which include sending Celeste a Trojan horse e-mail and publishing her confidential files to the internet. It is revealed that Celeste was the daughter of the woman Joanna’s father left for and that Joanna has harbored a grudge against both Celeste and her mother ever since.
Okay, so now you can see why I was so shook. Liv Constantine did an amazing job of portraying Piper in the worst light and making her seem like a cold-blooded killer. Knowing now that she wasn’t trying to hurt the kids or Leo does portray her chapters in a different light but I still think that her complaints about Leo putting the kids first over her show a bit of ugly selfishness/naïveté, especially when you consider he is a recent widower and they just lost their mom. So many things made more sense – namely how abrupt Leo seemed to be with the “divorce” and the fact that the kids thought their mom was dead because, well, she was! The clues were right there but I was completely blind.
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