Best Intentions
A Novel
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3.8 • 4 Ratings
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- $7.99
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- $7.99
Publisher Description
From the acclaimed author of Waiting to Surface comes a page-turning novel about four college friends whose reunion reawakens old desires and grudges—with fatal results.
What happens when you think you know the person you love—and you’re dead wrong?
Thirty-nine-year-old Lisa Barkley looks over at her sleeping husband, Sam, and can’t help but feel that their fifteen-year marriage is in a funk that she isn’t able to place. She tells herself that the strain must be due to their mounting financial pressures. With two daughters about to start another year at an elite Upper East Side private school and her own career hitting a wall, the effort of trying to stay afloat in their privileged world is increasingly difficult. But when she listens to Sam’s voicemail and hears a whispered phone call from a woman he is to meet that night, she begins to suspect he is having an affair.
Lisa’s best friend, Deirdre, claims it can’t be true. But how can Lisa fully trust her opinion when Deirdre is mired in her own obsessive affair? When Deirdre’s former college flame, Jack, comes to town and the two couples meet to celebrate his fortieth birthday, the stage is set for an explosive series of discoveries with devastating results.
Filled with suspense and provocative questions about the relationships we value most, Best Intentions is a tightly woven drama of love, friendship and betrayal.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Financial troubles and more test the marriage of a downtown Manhattan career mom and her business journalist husband in this writerly page-turner from Listfield (Waiting to Surface). Sam and Lisa Barkley, who were college sweethearts, can just afford to send their two daughters to an Upper East Side private girls' school, though Lisa, whose family "struggled into the middle class," wonders if a public school "gifted" program would've been a better choice. Meanwhile, Sam's late-night phone calls and odd absences from his office lead her to accuse him of having an affair. Lisa confides her fears to her best friend from college, Deirdre Cushing, whose mysterious death heightens the tension and mistrust between Lisa and Sam. While the author's penchant for punch lines and cliffhangers can come across as a stylistic tic, deft pacing keeps the action moving and the reader guessing. Listfield ensures no character is above suspicion, and in the end, no one is without blame.
