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In the now, she’s exhausted a laundry list of fertility options, from IVF treatments to adoption, and the silver lining is harder to find. Back then, Quinn’s bad breakup leads her to the love of her life. The “then and now” format-with alternating chapters moving back and forth in time-allows a hopeful romance to blossom within a dark but relatable dilemma. A few years later, they are happily married but struggling to conceive. Quinn meets her future husband, Graham, in front of her soon-to-be-ex-fiance’s apartment, where Graham is about to confront him for having an affair with his girlfriend. Named for an imperfectly worded fortune cookie, Hoover's ( It Ends with Us, 2016, etc.) latest compares a woman’s relationship with her husband before and after she finds out she’s infertile. With captivating dialogue, angst-y characters, and a couple of steamy sex scenes, Hoover has done it again. In addition to grief, the novel also deftly explores complex issues such as guilt, self-doubt, redemption, and forgiveness.

As usual, however, the author has created compelling characters who are magnetic and sympathetic enough to pull readers in. Built on a foundation of death and grief, this story has an undercurrent of sadness. Told alternatively from Kenna’s and Ledger’s perspectives, the story explores the myriad ways in which snap judgments based on partial information can derail people’s lives. As Kenna and Ledger continue to mourn for Scotty, they also grieve the future they cannot have with each other. Even so, Ledger is afraid that if he surrenders to his feelings, Scotty’s parents will kick him out of Diem’s life. As Ledger gets to know Kenna and acknowledges his attraction to her, he begins to wonder if maybe he and Scotty’s parents have judged her unfairly. Kenna feels the pull, too, and seems to be seeking Ledger out despite his judgmental behavior. Even so, there’s something about her that haunts him. He’s helping her grandparents raise her, and he too blames Kenna for Scotty’s death. Handsome, self-assured Ledger, who was Scotty’s best friend, is another key adult in Diem’s life. Instead, they file a restraining order preventing Kenna from so much as introducing herself to Diem. Now that she’s been released, Kenna is intent on getting to know her daughter, but Scotty’s parents won’t give her a chance to tell them what really happened the night their son died. When her baby girl, Diem, was born, she was forced to give custody to Scotty’s parents. Kenna didn’t even know she was pregnant until after she was sent to prison for murdering her boyfriend, Scotty. The narrative is from several shifting points of view (Laura, Pick, Chip, etc.) and goes back and forth in time between the ’70s and the present-and Arch works it like a maestro.įine writing, memorable characters, depth of feeling, and gripping drama-a real keeper.Īfter being released from prison, a young woman tries to reconnect with her 5-year-old daughter despite having killed the girl’s father. These are all good, if flawed and complex, people. How they sort out their relationships with one another after the big reveal is worth the price of admission. Goody is a saintly figure but unbelievably believable (you have to be there). Pick is a take-no-prisoners litigator in lifelong rebellion against his mobster father. Henry Griffin is the wise father figure that any troubled teen would kill for. This is Arch’s first novel in a long writing career that began with his breakthrough, the screenplay Sleepless in Seattle. (Pick’s precocious son says it’s like the last scene in an Agatha Christie novel.) We’ll have to stop here, because any more would spoil a really clever plot. The whole cast is assembled, and it’s clear that this “reveal” is what Dean Griffin desperately wanted in that last moment of consciousness. Eventually Goody, now a Zen Buddhist priest, is tracked down. Goody literally fled the school after discovering Pick and Laura in bed, wrote a blockbuster book about the three of them, and then disappeared again. They lost a child, which put extra strain on their shaky marriage. (And then there is the Griffins’ adopted son, Chip.) Pick is now a very successful attorney married to Laura. Seconds before a stroke erases his consciousness, their mentor, Dean Henry Griffin, calls out for Pick and Goody, setting everything in motion.

Stewart “Goody” Goodman, Sandy “Pick” Piccolo, and Laura Appleby were fast friends-and a love triangle-at Pocono Prep in the 1970s. In Arch’s thoughtful novel, the past comes back to haunt three prep school friends.