Ashley Audrain

One morning on Harlow Lane, four families' lives are changed forever. Whitney Loverly can only sit by her son's hospital bed after he falls from his bedroom window in the middle of the night. She refuses to speak to anyone. Back at home, the Loverlys' neighbours must reckon with their own roles in the tragedy - their selfless best friends who live across the street, the ambitious Goldsteins who desperately want a family of their own, and the quiet elderly couple who spend their days people watching on the front porch. But what happens next, when over the course of a week, the hidden and explosive truths that connect these families must come out? Exploring envy, motherhood and the intuitions that we silence, this is a novel that asks what happens when good people make bad choices.

The arrival of baby Violet was meant to be the happiest day of my life. But as soon as I held her in my arms I knew something wasn't right. I had always known that the women in my family aren't meant to be mothers. My husband Fox says I'm imagining it. He tells me I'm nothing like my own mother, and that Violet is the sweetest child. But she's different with me. Something feels very wrong. Is it her? Or is it me? Is she the monster? Or am I?