Her big sister, Tully, certainly landed the jackpot in the dating game. Tully’s husband is a big-time lawyer practically minting money. Rachel doesn’t begrudge Tully the money and the easy lifestyle. She just wishes that her sister would get a clue about how real people live.

Tully doesn’t have time for real people. She’s dealing with her own issues, one of which is a major hit to her husband’s job. No one knows it yet, but Tully’s life is about to downsize in a major way. That’s why her secret compulsion to steal has come back. Really, it’s the stress. Between motherhood to two energic boys, the financial implosion of life, and her father’s news that he’s seeing someone, the world should be grateful that all Tully does is swipe the occasional lipstick or candle. At least she doesn’t eat her feelings the way Rachel does.

When Rachel and Tully’s father, Stephen, invites them to lunch to meet the new girlfriend, both daughters want to hate her. She’s younger than Rachel, and their father is a well-renowned heart surgeon and the bank balance to prove it. What else could this Heather woman want? Surely she doesn’t expect them to believe she actually loves their father. Yet that’s exactly what Heather turns out to be: a young woman enamored with a man who just happens to be much older. 

Heather realizes how complicated the situation is. Stephen’s current wife, Pamela, is still alive, albeit living in an assisted living facility for patients with dementia and memory loss. Even so, Heather wants everything to be aboveboard and makes every effort she can to be a partner to Stephen without replacing anyone in his life. Yet the longer she spends as Stephen’s fiancée and the more she gets to know the people around him, the more she realizes that something about Stephen seems suspiciously familiar. 

As Rachel, Tully, and Heather deal with their own secrets and personal challenges, they discover unsettling truths about one another and themselves. Situations they understood one way start to take on new meaning as they dig deeper for answers that are hard to consider and even harder to accept. The women all realize that if they don’t act soon, life they know it may become a hazard for one or all three of them—in the most literal sense.

Author Sally Hepworth settles once again into the groove of complicated family relationships, the secrets loved ones keep, and how the ties that bind people together often chafe. Every single character is well-rounded, flawed, and yet also unafraid to speak their truth. Instead of using red herrings, Hepworth allows her characters to get themselves into even bigger messes with their honesty.

Hepworth also takes on a much larger task at hand: the careful examination of how people manipulate society’s expectations to get away with despicable acts. Through her female characters and what they endure, Hepworth lays bare just how hard it is for a person to be held accountable when they fit within a certain idea. The stress that Rachel, Tully, Heather, and even Pamela experience is real and heartbreaking. Anyone in a similar situation can certainly relate; in fact the novel may be difficult for those readers and yet cathartic all at the same time.

The ending, too, will leave readers in a thoughtful mood, considering everything the family has endured and what that says about them and society as a whole. Those wanting a compelling read that touches on several topics and does so in a masterful way will certainly want to read this book. I recommend readers Binge The Younger Wife.