Do you have the family you have always wanted, or are there problems? Cracks in your facade? Do you have regrets about things you’ve done or the way you’ve handled setbacks? If so, you will find someone to relate to in Randy Susan Meyers’ second novel, The Comfort of Lies, our Red Hot Book of the Week.
About Randy Susan Meyers
If you’ve been hanging out with the online literary establishment over the last three years, you’ve probably heard about author Randy Susan Meyers. Meyers burst onto the scene in 2010 with her debut novel, The Murderer’s Daughters, which is about two sisters who must live with the repercussions of the domestic violence that took both of their parents. She now teaches writing at the Grub Street Writers’ Center and blogs at The Huffington Post and Beyond the Margins.
About The Comfort of Lies
The Comfort of Lies connects three women from disparate backgrounds through a little girl, a middle-aged man and an act of infidelity.
It starts with Tia, who falls deeply in love with a man she imagines reciprocates her feelings. Throughout the course of their affair, Tia becomes a master of self-deception, imagining that all Nathan needs to prompt him to leave his wife and sons is the knowledge of the baby she is carrying. She is, of course, mistaken — instead of prompting declarations of love, Tia’s news chases her lover away home to confess to his wife, Juliette.
Unable to either “get rid of” the baby, as Nathan urges her, or imagine herself a competent mother, Tia gives her baby up for adoption, choosing Caroline for her child’s mother. What Tia knows is that Caroline is a pathologist and her husband is in finance. What she doesn’t know is that it is not Caroline but her husband who wants a baby; Caroline herself is completely unsure about her worth as a mother.
Five years later, Caroline is as unsure about motherhood as ever, and Tia thinks about her daughter frequently, often regretting the fact that she doesn’t know her and what her life is like. When the latest set of pictures arrives from Caroline, Tia begins thinking yet again about Nathan, wondering if he ever thinks about her and their child. She is inspired to send Nathan copies of the pictures, which are found by Juliette, who never knew about the child since Nathan left that out of his confession to the affair.
Juliette’s interception of the photos sets all three women on a collision course, the outcome of which will affect the composition of each of their families.
More reading picks
Holiday mysteries: A February roundup
Chinese New Year reads: A roundup
Grammys: Playlists for February’s hottest reads
Leave a Comment