August 29, 2011
YA author Shepard (Pretty Little Liars) aims for adult readers with this expertly rendered novel of family dysfunction set in moneyed Main Line Philadelphia. Recently widowed Sylvie Bates-McAllister runs the board of directors at Swithin School, a prestigious prep school founded by her grandfather. When Sylvie learns that her adopted adult son, Scott, may be responsible for the hazing death of a student he coached on the school’s wrestling team, she fears the worst and worries about how the scandal will affect her family name. Sylvie’s biological son, Charles—estranged from his brother since an ugly incident on the night of their high school graduation—is more concerned with his marital troubles than the hazing scandal. Now living in the suburbs, Charles frets over wife Joanna’s growing restlessness. Joanna, meanwhile, feels excluded from the neighborhood clique and Charles’s relationship with his mother, as well as disappointed by her marriage into this supposedly perfect upper-class family. As Shepard moves through time and shifts between the perspectives of her main characters, the inner lives of the Bates-McAllisters resonate more than the actual plot. Readers will respond as this family grapples with their many long-held secrets.