If a therapist promised they could fix your selfish husband, but only if you followed their dangerously unorthodox methods, would you do it?
Eliza’s playwright husband Richard Sheridan has accepted the career opportunity of a lifetime: running a prestigious theatre in Dublin. Eliza plays the role of the supportive wife – uprooting their daughter Mara, relocating from England to Dublin, running the household and managing Richard’s paperwork – but inside, she’s burning with resentment.
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Eliza was once a globe-trotting classical pianist; now, her time is consumed by the dramas of the judgmental ‘momfluencers’ at the café across from Mara’s school, where she spends hours anxiously watching her lonely daughter during playtimes.
When she’s sent a suggestive photo of Richard with another woman, it’s the last straw. She turns to mysterious marriage therapist Ellen Early for help. But Eliza has no idea just how far Ms. Early is willing to go to get results …
My Review
I started this one evening and then read the rest of the book in one day. It’s such a fast read, and you just want to keep going.
Eliza hates confrontation. I know the feeling. She makes jokes rather than come back with a sharp retort. She’s basically a doormat.
She was a successful classical pianist, but when Richard Sheridan helped her escape her tyrannical father, she became his doormat instead. She gave up her career to focus entirely on her daughter Mara, and support Richard’s flourishing career. But in reality, she resents his success while her life is unfulfilled.
Mara is lonely and withdrawn, and Eliza doesn’t know how to fix it. She struggles to make friends herself as she doesn’t identify with the stay at home mums or the working mums. Then she finds a business card on her table in the Honey Cafe and decides to contact the therapist Ellen Early for help. But who is this woman? Her methods are very strange and Eliza really should have done her research.
I found Ms Early the most fascinating of all the characters in the story. Eliza needs to wake up and smell the coffee, she really does, but if she’d done the aforementioned research, she might have been more suspicious.
I just loved this book. It’s not only witty and at times laugh out loud funny, it’s a fascinating insight into marriage, relationships, jealousy and obsession. I just hope Mara comes out OK.
Many thanks to @Tr4cyF3nt0n for inviting me to be part of the #CompulsiveReaders #blogtour and to NetGalley for an ARC.
About the Author
Having grown up in a small town in the middle of Ireland, Caroline got notions and moved to Dublin where she swanned around Trinity College for a few years. She got a degree in something called management science and still isn’t sure what exactly that is. After trying to make it as a corporate stooge, Caroline found herself in the world of journalism where she was able to secretly work on her novels while she was supposed to be writing stock market reports.
Much as she wishes otherwise, she is not the LA-based infidelity recovery expert of the same name.
