First published 2026
Dava Pennington works nights on her novel about two women running a domestic violence shelter in coastal Maine. She loves the writing, but her memory begins to fail. Tests confirm early-onset Alzheimer's. As her condition worsens, Dava moves to a memory care facility, leaving behind her husband Barr and her hidden manuscript. Barr discovers the novel and reads it with growing anger as he recognizes his wife's secret affair with colleague Svetlana White woven into the story. Over two years, he rewrites the book and publishes it under his own name to widespread acclaim. Guilt eventually drives him to confess his theft. The story unfolds through multiple voices: Barr obsessing over an injured shelter dog named Luna, Dava meeting Svetlana on a flight to Dublin, their children Milo and Naomi hiding together in the woods, and others who witness the betrayal's aftermath. As the truth emerges, the characters confront both the injustice of Barr's deception and the devastation of Dava's disease.
Genres: literary-fiction, domestic-fiction, contemporary, adult-fiction, psychological-thriller, family-drama
Vibes: emotionally-complex, haunting, intimate, literary, morally-ambiguous, thought-provoking
Tropes: hidden-manuscript, moral-reckoning, multiple-perspectives, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Coastal Maine, Dublin, Memory Care Facility
Period: 21st-century, Contemporary
288 pages · Hardcover · Knopf
Content warnings: domestic-violence, mental-illness, terminal-illness