First published 2014
Mabel Dagmar never expected to befriend Genevra Winslow, her wealthy roommate at their East Coast college. When Ev invites her to spend summer at Bittersweet, the family's Vermont cottage, Mabel enters a world of midnight swims and cocktail parties where children wave sparklers across manicured lawns. She breathes in the scent of wet dog near the yachts and listens to rich laughter drift over the lake as fireworks explode above. For the first time, Mabel feels she belongs somewhere. She gains friends, a boyfriend, and access to old money privilege. But her insider status comes with a price. Mabel uncovers something terrible about the Winslow family, leading to shocking violence that reveals how far they will go to protect their power. Now she faces an impossible choice: expose the truth and lose everything she has gained, or guard their dark secrets and claim this glittering world as her own.
Genres: literary-fiction, mystery, contemporary, family-drama
Vibes: atmospheric, intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: fish-out-of-water, insider-outsider, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Vermont, East Coast
Period: Contemporary
381 pages · Hardcover · Crown
Content warnings: violence