Susan "Zuzu" Braeburn approaches forty with everything she thought she wanted. Her house impresses visitors. Her child brings joy. Her law career provides security. Yet her marriage to Agnes feels hollow, and Zuzu cannot shake the feeling that she has built her life on wrong decisions. She chose her white mother over her Black father when they divorced. She abandoned art for law school. Most painfully, she married Agnes while harboring feelings for Cash, her male best friend. When tragedy forces Zuzu to return to her childhood town, the questions she has buried resurface with crushing force. Every path not taken seems to mock her current reality. Jackie Thomas-Kennedy's debut explores the weight of choices that shape a life and the courage required to face buried truths about love and identity.
Genres: literary-fiction, domestic-fiction, contemporary, adult-fiction, family-drama
Vibes: emotionally-complex, intimate, introspective, melancholic, thought-provoking
Tropes: buried-truths, roads-not-taken, second-chance, self-discovery, unrequited-love
Setting: childhood town
Paperback
Content warnings: death