First published 2024
Mallory Dunne faces every parent's nightmare. Her ten-year-old son Sam nearly died from death cap mushroom poisoning at summer camp three years ago. Now she desperately searches for a kidney donor to save his life. The search forces Mallory to dig into two buried secrets: her mother's adoption from an Irish orphanage in 1952 and her own intense romance with Monk Adams, now a famous singer-songwriter, that ended in betrayal fourteen years earlier. Meanwhile, in 1951 Cairo, Hungarian refugee Hannah Ainsworth has rebuilt her life through marriage to a wealthy British diplomat. But a chance meeting with a mysterious hotel manager ignites a passionate affair that reawakens her desire for everything the war took from her. As revolution brews in Egypt's streets, pregnant Hannah becomes caught between two men in a dangerous game of espionage. Her ultimate sacrifice will ripple through generations, connecting her fate to Mallory's desperate quest in contemporary New England.
Genres: historical-fiction, 20th-century, contemporary, 21st-century, adoption, family-drama
Vibes: emotional-atmospheric, intimate, suspenseful
Tropes: enemies-to-lovers, found-family, second-chance-romance
Setting: Cairo, Egypt, Ireland, New England
Period: 1951, 1952, 2010s
544 pages · Paperback · Random House Large Print
Content warnings: medical-trauma