The First Wife's Secret

My father looks around the room and raises his glass of champagne high. Friends and family Im so glad youre all here today. Because theres something Ive been wanting to share with you. The way my stepmothers looking at him I can tell right away Dads gone off-script. He looks out over us all and rubs his hand across his sweat-beaded forehead. Hes shaking I notice. And then he looks my way and his glance is absolutely piercing. Thats what Im thinking in the moment that his knees suddenly buckle and the glass drops from his hand. It smashes like a grenade an explosion of deafening silence. My father is lying face-forward in the grass. Somebody call an ambulance a voice shrieks. And the world as I know it ends. Dinah Spencer is back in her childhood home for one stressful weekend. Its the twenty-five-year anniversary of her fathers marriage to her stepmother. Those twenty-five years havent all been happy ones for middle child Dinah but shes getting ready to put the past behind her keeping the bonds of family strong for her own daughter Josies sake - until her beloved dad collapses in the middle of his anniversary speech.In the wake of her fathers shocking cardiac arrest youngest daughter Lottie Spencer must struggle to keep her family afloat. Her mother the ever-capable Mara suddenly seems disturbingly fragile. Then there are Lotties two older step-sisters Vaughan and Dinah whose own private lives seem to be fraying at the seams. And then theres that mysterious box in the attic belonging to her fathers first wife. A box whose explosive secrets Lottie is only just starting to unravel...A heartbreaking gripping page-turner about family secrets and the lengths well go to protect those we love. Fans of Jodi Picoult Diane Chamberlaine and Liane Moriarty will be hooked.