From Publishers Weekly

Bestselling author Macomber (_There's Something About Christmas_) explores the intricate dynamics of family with sincerity and wit in this well-crafted novel. At 50, Seattleite Susannah Nelson is unsatisfied with her American dream: she's got a devoted husband, two teenage children and a rewarding career teaching fifth grade. She's also got a recently deceased father, a mother increasingly unable to care for herself,and recurring dreams about her high school sweetheart, Jake Presley, who disappeared around the time of the death of her brother, Doug, 30 years ago. Returning to her hometown of Colville, Wash., over the summer to look after her mother, Susannah has an ulterior motive: to find Jake. As she orchestrates her mother's rocky move to a nursing home and tries to keep track of her household (particularly her petulant daughter, recently taken with shiftless townie Troy Nance), Susannah picks up Jake's trail with the help of a private investigator and a childhood friend. As tension mounts between Susannah and her family, she uncovers the shocking details of Jake's disappearance—and of Doug's death—and ultimately faces her long-buried resentment toward her father. Macomber excels at detailing family conflict and the resulting tangle of regret and anger, but her God's-eye-view keeps her characters at arm's length, showing readers their emotional complexity rather than providing a view from within. (May)
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From

Most of us wonder what our lives would have been like if we had taken another path and made different choices. Susannah Nelson has a wonderful husband, two nearly grown kids, and a teaching career, but ever since her father's death, she has been vaguely unsettled. Never on especially good terms with him, she has always believed that he had a hand in running off her first love. Now her mother seems to be failing mentally. Susannah's husband encourages her to visit her mother, possibly settle her into an assisted-living facility, and try to shake off her depression. He has no idea that Susannah can't stop thinking about her lost love, Jake, and intends to find out why he left her. When she arrives in Colville from Seattle, Susannah discovers her mother is much worse than she imagined. Her inquiry into the road not taken reveals shocking truths about her family and, most importantly, herself in Macomber's latest touching and resonant tale. Maria Hatton
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