If you are in the mood for a family saga where nobody’s perfect and relationships are complicated, add this to cart. Also maybe add a package of 9 volt batteries because you’re probably going to want to change all the batteries in your smoke detectors.
April and Leo have 2 little kids, they are educators. Both of them have some things they’ve never really healed from. They have a fight and decide to divorce.
That night, their house burns down. Everyone is okay, but they flee to her parents home. Deb and Billy. Billy is newly diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. We learn their origin story. And how he has so much in his brain but the memories are mixed up.
Absolutely beautiful writing and tender moments. It teaches me that we are all complex. Relationships are more than the sum of two people. Our experiences change us and help us connect. And we all just are dying to be seen. To be understood. To be lived for who we really are. The person my parents know is different than the person my kids know or that my coworkers know. It’s the opposite of codependency theory.
These CHARACTERS. Just so well done in their imperfection. So hard to write complex family drama well and this one is a quiet beauty.
Thank you to NetGalley and Simon and Schuster for the ARC. Book to be published June 15, 2026.
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