FICTION

The Things We Wish Were True

by Marybeth Mayhew Whalen
Lake Union: Amazon. Sept. 2016. 314p. ISBN 9781503936072. pap. $14.95. F
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It's summer in Mathews, NC, and the residents of the Sycamore Glen subdivision congregate around the neighborhood pool. They're the same people who've shared the pool every summer for years, yet most have remained relative strangers to one another. There's Zell, a lonely mother hen whose chicks have flown the coop; Lance, an overwhelmed, newly single father; Jencey, a society wife who escaped from the suburbs but now must face the past she abandoned; Bryte, Jencey's former best friend who is now married to the love Jencey left behind; and Cailey, a child from the wrong side of the tracks who must act as a parent. When a near catastrophe occurs poolside, it acts as a catalyst that, layer by layer, begins to expose the soft white underbelly that lurks beneath Sycamore Glen's quiet suburban facade.
VERDICT Whalen, director of the celebrated She Reads online book club and author of several works of CF, has crafted a compelling page-turner populated by characters we've all met and know in our everyday lives. Or do we? This book upends the myth of the American dream, examines the secrets that hide beneath the drapes of a typical neighborhood and, ultimately, provides a compassionate testament to the power of community.
Reviewed by Jeanne Bogino, New Lebanon Lib., NY , Sep 01, 2016
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