The Way We Left Things

AN ENGROSSING DEBUT NOVEL FROM JENNA BUSH HAGER’S VENTURE, THOUSAND VOICES

A young woman struggles to come to terms with the consequences of a first love that changed her forever—and led to the fracture of her family.

Kari and her twin brother, Matt, are fresh out of high school when their family rents a summer cottage in the sleepy lake town of Culver Point. It should be an idyllic holiday before college in the fall, but their volatile—and at times abusive—father quickly makes things unbearable. Soon, Matt's drinking too much and Kari is looking for any excuse to get out of the house. But then she meets a local named Michael and finds herself instantly drawn to him. Before long, they're both unable to think of anything else but each other, and as they grow closer, so does the possibility for everything to go wrong.

Years later, Kari is on her way back to Culver Point for the first time since that fateful summer to attend a family wedding. She's trying hard to keep her anxiety hidden from her devoted fiancé, Jonathan, who knows nothing of her history in this place. Kari is now estranged from Matt, barely speaking to her father, and tormented by memories of the way things ended with Michael and how his actions forever impacted her family.

Then Matt reappears for the first time in years, unexpectedly joining their now-divorced parents, Kari, and Jonathan for this supposedly happy occasion. Tension builds relentlessly as they all try to avoid confronting the fallout of the last night they spent together in Culver Point all those years ago—and find a way forward.

Told in alternating timelines, past and present collide in this moving story of the ripple effects of first love and the repercussions of complicated family dynamics.