The celebrated author (whom the Boston Globe compared to Anne Tyler) of The Myth of You and Me explores an untraditional love story through the lens of a character actor who must finally become the hero of her own story.
Newly famous actor Charlie Outlaw said too much in an interview, and now his fans have turned on him, and his girlfriend, actress Josie Lamar, has left him. He's fled to a remote island in search of anonymity, but his solitary hike into the jungle takes him into danger he never anticipated.
As Charlie struggles with gaining fame, Josie struggles with its loss. The star of a cult TV show in her early twenties, Josie has spent the twenty years since searching for a role to equal that one, and feeling less and less like her character, the heroic Bronwyn Kyle. As she gets ready for a reunion of the cast at a huge fan convention, she thinks all she needs to do is find a part and replace Charlie. But she can't forget him, and to get him back she'll need to be a hero in real life.
Ninety-year-old Margaret Riley is content hiding from the world, finding comfort in the mystery novels that keep her company, that is, until she spots a woman who's moved into the long-empty house across the pond. Jennifer Young is also looking to hide. On the run from her old life, she and her four-year-old son Milo have moved to a quiet town where no one from her past can find her. In Jennifer, Margaret sees both a potential companion in her loneliness and a mystery to be solved. But Jennifer refuses to talk about herself, her son, his missing father, or her past. Frustrated, Margaret crosses more and more boundaries in pursuit of the truth, threatening to unravel the new life Jennifer has so painstakingly created - and reveal some secrets of her own.
Eloise Hempel is on her way to teach a class at Harvard when she receives devastating news. Her sister and her husband have been killed in a tragic accident, and Eloise must return home to Cincinnati to take her sister's three children, Theodora, Josh, and Claire, out of the hands of her own incapable mother. Nearly two decades later, Eloise is still in that house, still thinking about what she left behind. With Claire leaving for New York City for a promising ballet career, Eloise has plans to finally embark on a life that's hers alone. But when her mother makes a competition out of who inherits the house, and Claire reveals a life-changing secret, their makeshift family begins to fall apart.
“Leah Stewart’s brilliantly written novel Husband and Wife is a deeply human book: funny, tender, smart, self-aware. When you read it you will laugh, you will cry, you will recognize others, you will recognize yourself.” — Elin Hilderbrand, author of The Castaways and Barefoot
From the highly acclaimed author of The Myth of You and Me comes a new novel about a young mother who finds her identity rocked to the core when her writer-husband reveals his next novel about infidelity isn’t entirely fiction. Fans of Meg Wolitzer, Ayelet Waldman, and Marisa de los Santos, as well as memoirs like Happens Every Day and Perfection, will love Leah Stewart’s Husband and Wife.
When Cameron was fifteen, Sonia was her best friend no one could come between them. Now Cameron is a twenty-nine-year-old research assistant with no meaningful ties to anyone except her aging boss, noted historian Oliver Doucet. When an unexpected letter arrives from Sonia ten years after the incident that ended their friendship, Cameron doesn't reply, despite Oliver's urging. But then he passes away, and Cameron discovers that he has left her with one final task: to track down Sonia and hand-deliver a mysterious package to her. Now without a job, a home, and a purpose, Cameron decides to honor his request, setting off on the road to find this stranger who was once her inseparable other half. The Myth of You and Me, the story of Cameron and Sonia's friendship as intense as any love affair and its dramatic demise, captures the universal sense of loss and nostalgia that often lingers after the end of an important relationship. Searingly honest, beautiful, and full of fragile urgency, The Myth of You and Me is a celebration and portrait of a friendship that will appeal to anyone who still feels the absence of that first true friend. Also available as a Random House AudioBook and an eBook From the Hardcover edition.
