Author(s): Lucy Atkins

Crime Fiction

"A COMPLEX, CREEPY, AND INSIDIOUS NOVEL ABOUT AMBITION." --THE GUARDIAN
"READERS OF RUTH WARE AND GILLIAN FLYNN WILL LOVE IT." --LIBRARY JOURNAL (STARRED REVIEW)

"FASCINATING, BRILLIANT, CREEPY." --GOOD HOUSEKEEPING

If you had the perfect life . . . how far would you go to protect it?
Professor Olivia Sweetman has worked hard to achieve the life of her dreams, with a high-flying career as a TV presenter and historian, three children, and a talented husband.

Only one other person knows that Olivia's perfect life is in fact a desperate tangle of lies: Vivian Tester, the socially awkward, middle-aged housekeeper of a Sussex manor who found the Victorian diary of a pioneering female surgeon on which Olivia's new biography is based.

In a gripping narrative that shifts between London, Sussex, and the idyllic South of France, Olivia and Vivian will learn knife-edged truths about themselves and discover just how far each will go to protect her reputation.