First published 2022
Irene Steele's comfortable suburban existence collapses with a midnight phone call. Her husband has died on St. John island, thousands of miles from their New York home. She cannot understand why he was in the Caribbean at all. Irene travels to the tropical paradise to claim his body and settle his affairs. On the pristine beaches of St. John, she uncovers a devastating truth: her husband maintained a second family in secret. The man she thought she knew completely had built an entire hidden life. As Irene digs deeper into the circumstances surrounding his death, she finds herself caught in a dangerous web of lies and deception. The island's beauty masks dark secrets that threaten everything she believed about her marriage. Irene must navigate unfamiliar territory both literally and emotionally, discovering who her husband really was while questioning everything about their life together.
Genres: romance, mystery, contemporary, family-drama
Vibes: emotional, intimate, suspenseful
Tropes: deception, fish-out-of-water, secrets
Setting: Caribbean, New York, St. John
Period: 21st-century
ebook · Little, Brown and Company