Mara Ellison thinks moving to Rosebridge is the break her family needs and the opportunity her career has been waiting for. Their new home sits in the coveted Garden Quarter, a neighborhood of manicured gardens, architectural prizes, and neighbors who know exactly what everyone else is doing. Better still, Mara has been invited there by Celeste Ward, the celebrated writer she has admired for years, who wants Mara to assist with a new project. The dream curdles almost immediately. Celeste knows far too much about Mara, seems obsessed with the private lives behind the neighborhood's polished doors, and wants her new assistant to help uncover secrets that have nothing to do with writing. Mara is ready to walk away until Celeste ends up dead and Mara becomes the person who finds her. Suddenly every eccentric detail Celeste collected looks less like gossip and more like evidence. With suspicion moving from house to house, Mara begins looking at the people she has only just met: charming couples with strained marriages, friendly neighbors with practiced smiles, and residents who may have had excellent reasons to fear what Celeste knew. Tessa Calder, the socially connected woman across the street, becomes both ally and question mark as the investigation exposes rivalries, affairs, old grudges, and a history that reaches beyond the Garden Quarter's perfect facades. Mara wanted a new beginning, not a murder mystery, but Celeste may have chosen her for a reason. To learn why, she will have to discover what the neighborhood is hiding before the person who silenced its most dangerous observer decides Mara has learned too much.
Mara Ellison thinks moving to Rosebridge is the break her family needs and the opportunity her career has been waiting for. Their new home sits in the coveted Garden Quarter, a neighborhood of manicured gardens, architectural prizes, and neighbors who know exactly what everyone else is doing. Bet...