Zelda Blair

In this captivating and page-turning literary novel Zelda Blair is a young mother trapped in an abusive marriage navigating a life in which appearances are everything. Zelda resides with her husband and four young children in San Franciscos tony Pacific Heights neighborhood. The daughter of a literature professor and a Manhattan police officer Zelda is known among friends and acquaintances for her intelligence and genial nature. However she hides a simmering resentment: She believes that her investment banker husband Nick is having an affair with her close friend Brooke an outspoken Bay area socialite. Zelda decides to shelter herself and her four daughters at her parents home but she never admits to her feelings of shame confusion and intimidation and she struggles with the emotional contradiction of loving a husband who attacks her physically with increasing hostility. She eventually returns home to find Nick in one of his better moods. But her self-deception soon crumbles and she finally tells her friends about his physical violence. Later on things get messy and the lines between lovers and enemies become blurred. The story fairly brims with amiable and charming characters but it also effectively gets across Zeldas dark history eliciting empathy and compassion. Fosters prose style is cleareyed and relentless throughout right up to a rousing conclusion that will shock and satisfy readers. An intense emotional story of domestic abuse.