Critical Praise

"Berne uses familiar circumstances to explore treacheries, big and small, that invade family relationships…[She] shows enormous intelligence about expectations, and what people hide from themselves and palm off on each other."

——The Washington Post

"Berne nails the messy domesticity that resides where Martha Stuart fears to tread."

——People

"Haunting…Takes you deep into perhaps the least-traveled territory of all: the complex motives behind everyday human behavior."

——Harper’s Bazaar

"Compelling and disturbingly familiar…Berne has a talent for drawing page-turning suspense out of common situations, and her novel is all the more haunting because its dangers are so banal…It’s hard not to be drawn it."

——The Boston Globe