When Clemmie goes next door to check on her difficult and unlikeable neighbor Dom, he isn’t there. But something else is. Something stunning, beautiful and inexplicable. Clemmie photographs the wondrous object on her cell phone and makes the irrevocable error of forwarding it. As the picture swirls over the internet, Clemmie tries desperately to keep a grip on her own personal network of secrets. Can fifty years of careful hiding under names not her own be ruined by one careless picture?

And although what Clemmie finds is a work of art, what the police find is a body. . . in a place where Clemmie wasn’t supposed to be, and where she left her fingerprints. Suddenly, the bland, quiet life Clemmie has built for herself in her sleepy South Carolina retirement community comes crashing down as her dark past surges into the present. 

Courtney’s Thoughts

I wanted to like this book more than I did. The description had this fascinating spin on what she had been hiding for all of this time, and I was waiting for a devious past involving a life of crime that had long been left behind to be the epitome of what an elderly woman is supposed to be. While there are definitely some things that needed left behind, this story took a much darker turn than I expected. There is an underlying tale of assault and abuse that could be triggering for some. This is a story I would normally pick up with a warning, but I felt a bit blindsided by how intense it was. I think had I been forewarned, I would have rated this book higher. My other star would have been gained with a bit more mystery. I feel like I had solved the twists too soon in the book. They were good twists, but I would have liked to have been kept in the dark a bit longer. Overall, it is an enjoyable story still, and it was a new experience for me reading a book from a much older perspective than I’m used to. I really did enjoy that aspect of it, and I think it has helped open me up to being more willing to read books in older voices.

Thank you to NetGalley, Caroline B. Cooney, and Poisoned Pen Press for the chance to read this novel for an honest review.