Karen White
Pub Date
11 Apr 2017
by
Berkley Publishing Group
Women's Fiction
Women's Fiction
Description
From the New York Times bestselling author of Flight Patterns comes a stunning new novel about a young single mother who discovers that the nature of friendship is never what it seems....
Recently divorced, Merilee Talbot Dunlap moves with her two children to the Atlanta suburb of Sweet Apple, Georgia. It’s not her first time starting over, but her efforts at a new beginning aren’t helped by an anonymous local blog that dishes about the scandalous events that caused her marriage to fail.
Merilee finds some measure of peace in the cottage she is renting from town matriarch Sugar Prescott. Though stubborn and irascible, Sugar sees something of herself in Merilee—something that allows her to open up about her own colorful past.
Sugar’s stories give Merilee a different perspective on the town and its wealthy school moms in their tennis whites and shiny SUVs, and even on her new friendship with Heather Blackford. Merilee is charmed by the glamorous young mother’s seemingly perfect life and finds herself drawn into Heather's world.
In a town like Sweet Apple, where sins and secrets are as likely to be found behind the walls of gated mansions as in the dark woods surrounding Merilee’s house, appearance is everything. But just how dangerous that deception can be will shock all three women....
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Also - now available in paperback:
FLIGHT PATTERNS tells the story of Georgia Chambers, a fine china expert who left her family years before and is forced to return home and repair the relationships she’s carefully avoided. To embrace her own life—mistakes and all—she will have to find the courage to confront the ghosts of her past and the secrets she was forced to keep.
____________________________________________________
Recently divorced, Merilee Talbot Dunlap moves with her two children to the Atlanta suburb of Sweet Apple, Georgia. It’s not her first time starting over, but her efforts at a new beginning aren’t helped by an anonymous local blog that dishes about the scandalous events that caused her marriage to fail.
Merilee finds some measure of peace in the cottage she is renting from town matriarch Sugar Prescott. Though stubborn and irascible, Sugar sees something of herself in Merilee—something that allows her to open up about her own colorful past.
Sugar’s stories give Merilee a different perspective on the town and its wealthy school moms in their tennis whites and shiny SUVs, and even on her new friendship with Heather Blackford. Merilee is charmed by the glamorous young mother’s seemingly perfect life and finds herself drawn into Heather's world.
In a town like Sweet Apple, where sins and secrets are as likely to be found behind the walls of gated mansions as in the dark woods surrounding Merilee’s house, appearance is everything. But just how dangerous that deception can be will shock all three women....
___________________________________________________
Also - now available in paperback:
FLIGHT PATTERNS tells the story of Georgia Chambers, a fine china expert who left her family years before and is forced to return home and repair the relationships she’s carefully avoided. To embrace her own life—mistakes and all—she will have to find the courage to confront the ghosts of her past and the secrets she was forced to keep.
____________________________________________________
The Night the Lights Went Out by Karen White
Excerpt for Bloggers
A cluster of moms stood in
the parking lot surrounded by high-end SUVs following first day drop-off at
Windwood Academy. The women appeared to be listening with rapt attention
to the tall blond woman in the center of their semi-circle, her hair arranged
perfectly beneath her white tennis visor, her long and lean limbs brown and
glowy. Merilee noticed this last part only because her ex-mother-in-law
had given her a bottle of glowy lotion for her last birthday and Lily had told
her it made her look sparkly like Katy Perry in one of her videos.
Merilee had thrown out the remainder of the bottle, realizing she wasn’t the
type anymore to look glowy much less sparkly.
But the blonde definitely
was. Her whole body glowed. Her face glowed. Even the hair
visible beneath the visor appeared to be lit from within. The woman
looked vaguely familiar, and Merilee realized she’d probably been one of the
mothers she’d met at the open house the previous week. She’d only been to
the one let’s-get-acquainted event, her work schedule precluding any of the
various parties that were held almost exclusively on weekdays when she worked.
Merilee was terrible with
names, had been ever since she started dating Michael. He was so good at
it, always reminding her who everyone was when they were at a party, that she’d
simply stopped trying. She hoped she was only out of practice instead of
permanently disabled. Her children’s futures probably depended on it
since Michael wouldn’t be there to make sure Merilee remembered the names of
Lily’s friends who were or were not speaking to each other. And which of
Colin’s teachers appreciated his dreamy attitude and those who didn’t. It
had always been a game with them—her recalling every detail about a friend or
teacher, details always overlooked by Michael—and then he’d fill in the missing
part—the name. But now she had to do it all on her own.
She smiled vaguely in the
direction of the blond woman and her entourage and had almost made it to her
van when she heard her name being called.
“Merilee? Merilee
Dunlap?”
Great. The woman not
only remembered her first name, but her last as well. Forcing a warm
smile on her face, Merilee turned. “Oh, hello. It’s good to see you
again.”
The other women parted like
the Red Sea as the tall blond walked toward Merilee and she remembered that the
woman had been wearing a Lily Pulitzer sundress and two-carat diamond stud
earrings when they’d met before. But she didn’t remember her name.
“I thought that was you. I looked for you in Mrs. Marshall’s
homeroom. I’m the room mother and wanted to welcome Lily myself.”
Merilee remembered the
voice. It was very Southern, heavily laced with dropped consonants and
elongated vowels. The most memorable part about it was that it sounded
exactly like Merilee’s mother.
“We were running a bit late
this morning.” Feeling suddenly short and frumpy in her dark skirt and blazer,
Merilee had the strong urge to explain. “My son couldn’t find his new
uniform shoes. They somehow managed to find their way back into the box
they came in and then got shoved so far under his bed that it took nearly
twenty minutes to locate them. And then Lily spilled her bowl of cereal
and milk down the front of her skirt, and I had to quickly iron one of her
other ones so she could wear it.”
The woman gave her a warm
smile from behind dark Chanel sunglasses as if she knew exactly what it was like
to be a frazzled single mother. “Bless your heart. And on the first
day at a new school. You’ll get used to the routine, I promise. It
took me a whole month to realize that I should have a skirt and blouse for
every school day plus one, and have Patricia have them cleaned and ironed as
soon as my girls dropped them on the floor.”
Not exactly sure how to
reslake, Merilee picked out the first confusing part of the sentence.
“Patricia?”
“My house manager. I
couldn’t live without her. You know how crazy busy it is with all of the
kids’ schedules.” She reached into her large handbag that was more
briefcase than purse, with a designer’s logo sprouting over its surface like
kudzu. “I was going to stick this in the mail to you, but since you’re
here I’ll give it to you now. It’s a sign-up sheet for parties and field
trips—it lists everything for the year. Just let me know your
availabilities and ask Lily to bring it in to school and give to Bailey as soon
as you can. Bailey is very responsible and will make sure it gets to
me.” The woman smiled, her teeth perfect. “Only sign up for
four—every mother wants to be at every single event, but then it just gets
crowded—plus there won’t be room on the bus for the kids.”
“Only four…” Merilee took
the list and looked at it, almost letting out an audible sigh when she saw the
woman’s name at the top of the page, Heather Blackford, Class Mother, followed
by three different phone numbers. Now she remembered. Heather had a
daughter in Colin’s class, too, both girls’ names starting with ‘B’.
“Yes. And if you
could turn it back in tomorrow that would be terrific. I’ll have Claire
put it all in a spreadsheet and I’ll email it to all the mothers. Please
write neatly—Claire has a way of butchering your name if she can’t read it.”
“Claire?”
“My personal
assistant. She’s only part time but I would simply die of
exhaustion without her.”
The ladies behind her all
nodded in understanding.
“Yes, well, I’ll take a
look at it and get it back to you tomorrow.” Merilee was already
wondering how she was going to approach her boss to ask him for more time
off. The divorce and move had already eaten up all of her vacation time,
and although Max was kind and understanding, everyone had their limits.
“And don’t forget the ‘I survived
my first week of fourth grade’ party at my lake house this Saturday. I’ll
be handing out disposable cameras to all the moms and dads to take pictures
throughout the year at our various events—I like to do little photo albums for
all the kids and the teachers at the end of the year.” She beamed, like
it was just a small thing. “Oh, and I took the liberty of signing you up
for a dessert because we’re overrun with vegetables and dip and pimiento
cheese. I figured you’d know how to make something sweet.”
“Oh…” Merilee simply
blinked her eyes for a moment, wondering if Heather had meant to be insulting.
“Because you’re from South
Georgia. You mentioned that when we met. You said I had the same
accent as your mother.”
Feeing oddly relieved,
Merilee said, “Yes, of course. Where did you say you were from?”
“Here and there—but mostly
Georgia. I can always tell a native Georgian. Hard to hide it,
isn’t it? It’s almost like no matter how far you go in life, all you have
to do is open your mouth and somebody knows exactly where you’re from.”
There was something in the
way Heather said it that made Merilee pause. “Yes, well, I’ll call my
mother today and ask her what she might recommend.”
“Wonderful.” Heather
beamed. She pointed a key fob toward a black Porsche SUV with vanity
plates that read YERSERV, and the rear door slowly raised. As the other
mothers oohed and ahhed appropriately, Merilee stared into the trunk where
fourteen metallic gift bags with blue or pink tissue paper expertly pleated at
the tops were arranged in neat rows.
Heather moved toward the
car. “A little lagniappe—that’s Cajun for ‘a little extra’ to all of my
Yankee friends—for the first day of school. My treat. I thought we
could each give our children a bag at pickup today and then head over to Scoops
for ice cream afterwards. I’ve already reserved the party room at the
back of the store. Claire is picking up the helium balloons this morning
and will have it all decorated in Windwood colors.”
“You are just too much,”
one of the mothers said as the other women eagerly stepped toward the car and
took a bag.