Perfect Family

From the acclaimed author of Speak Softly, She Can Hear comes a gripping literary thriller about a distinguished New England family and the buried secrets that threaten to destroy them.

Pony Carteret has always been a strong swimmer. So when she is discovered drowned at the family’s summer home on Vermont’s Lake Aral—her red hair tangled in an anchor chain and her baby abandoned on shore—her family is stunned by disbelief.

As the police investigate, the Carterets are forced to confront troubling questions. Why was Pony at the house that night? Was she hiding secrets? And why had she never revealed the identity of her child’s father? Though the case is ultimately ruled an accident, Pony’s older brother, William, cannot let it go.

His search for answers uncovers evidence that a stranger was at the house the night Pony died—and soon leads him far beyond his sister’s mysterious death. As William digs deeper, long-buried family secrets begin to surface, exposing hidden truths about his deceased mother, his family, and himself. What he uncovers threatens to unravel everything the Carterets have spent generations trying to protect.

Atmospheric and gripping, Perfect Family is a haunting novel about the devastating power of secrets and the lengths families will go to keep them buried.