First published 2025
Claire and Aaron Litvak receive the call every parent dreads. Their daughter Lindsey lies in a Shanghai hospital, critically injured after a hit and run accident. The divorced couple flies to China, where Lindsey has been teaching English during her gap year. They maintain a tense vigil at her bedside in the bustling city. The accident forces them to confront the shocking event that destroyed their marriage four years earlier and drove Lindsey away from them both. Estranged from her parents, Lindsey has shared her secrets only with Grace, her younger sister who was adopted from China as an infant. As Claire and Aaron navigate unfamiliar Shanghai, they discover disturbing details about Lindsey's life abroad. Nothing appears as straightforward as they believed. The crisis tests whether their family bonds can survive past betrayals and present uncertainties.
Genres: literary-fiction, mystery, contemporary, family-drama
Vibes: emotional, intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: estranged-family, fish-out-of-water, secrets
Setting: China, Shanghai
Period: 21st-century
273 pages · Kindle Edition · Little, Brown and Company
Content warnings: anxiety, depression, medical-trauma