From the author of the internationally bestselling The Lake of Dead Languages comes a gripping novel about madness, motherhood, love, and trust.
When Daphne Marist and her infant daughter, Chloe, pull up the gravel drive to the home of Daphne’s new employer, it feels like they’ve entered a whole new world. Tucked in the Catskills, the stone mansion looks like something out of a fairy tale, its lush landscaping hiding the view of the mental asylum just beyond its border. Daphne secured the live-in position using an assumed name and fake credentials, telling no one that she’s on the run from a controlling husband who has threatened to take her daughter away.
Daphne’s new life is a far cry from the one she had in Westchester where, just months before, she and her husband welcomed little Chloe. From the start, Daphne tries to be a good mother, but she’s plagued by dark moods and intrusive thoughts that convince her she’s capable of harming her own daughter. When Daphne is diagnosed with Post Partum Mood Disorder, her downward spiral feels unstoppable—until she meets Laurel Hobbes.
Laurel, who also has a daughter named Chloe, is everything Daphne isn’t: charismatic, sophisticated, fearless. They immediately form an intense friendship, revealing secrets to one another they thought they’d never share. Soon, they start to look alike, dress alike, and talk alike, their lives mirroring one another in strange and disturbing ways. But Daphne realizes only too late that being friends with Laurel will come at a very shocking price—one that will ultimately lead her to that towering mansion in the Catskills where terrifying, long-hidden truths will finally be revealed....
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“A labyrinthine tale of tangled identities, and every twist of the plot exposes more ghosts from the past preying on the present. A Gothic thriller deliciously riddled with dark motives and shadowy paths.”
— Kirkus Reviews
“Carol Goodman is, simply put, a stellar writer.”
— Lisa Unger, New York Times bestselling author“An atmospheric and harrowing tale, richly literary in complexity but ripe with all the crazed undertones, confusions, and forebodings inherent in the gothic genre.”
— Booklist (starred review)“This engrossing novel will keep readers eagerly turning the pages.”
— Publishers Weekly“Goodman’s characteristic gothic elements—an isolated country house, academics, women in danger—meld especially well with the untrustworthy spouses and endangered children of domestic suspense…Engaging.”
— Library Journal“I couldn’t put it down but I didn’t want it to end.”
— Wendy Webb, author of The VanishingBe the first to write a review about this audiobook!
Carol Goodman (a.k.a. Juliet Dark) is a critically acclaimed literary suspense writer. Her novels have won the Hammett Prize and the Mary Higgins Clark Award and have been nominated for the Dublin/IMPAC Award and the Nero Wolfe Award. After graduating from Vassar College, where she majored in Latin, she taught Latin for several years in Austin, Texas. She then received an MFA degree in fiction from the New School University, where she teaches writing.
Nicol Zanzarella is an Earphones Award–winning audiobook narrator and a theater and television actress. She has appeared in productions of Richard III, Romeo and Juliet, The Winter’s Tale, Cousin Bette, Danny and the Deep Blue Sea, and many others.