**The Good House, by Ann Leary, is funny, poignant, and terrifying. A
classic New England tale that lays bare the secrets of one little town,
this spirited novel will stay with you long after the story has ended.
**
Now a major motion picture starring Sigourney Weaver and Kevin
Kline!
Hildy Good is a townie. A lifelong resident of a small community on the
rocky coast of Boston's North Shore, she knows pretty much everything
about everyone. And she's good at lots of things, too. A successful
real-estate broker, mother, and grandmother, her days are full. But her
nights have become lonely ever since her daughters, convinced their
mother was drinking too much, sent her off to rehab. Now she's in
recovery--more or less.
Alone and feeling unjustly persecuted, Hildy finds a friend in Rebecca
McAllister, one of the town's wealthy newcomers. Rebecca is grateful for
the friendship and Hildy feels like a person of the world again, as she
and Rebecca escape their worries with some harmless gossip and a bottle
of wine by the fire--just one of their secrets.
But Rebecca is herself the subject of town gossip. When Frank Getchell,
an old friend who shares a complicated history with Hildy, tries to warn
her away from Rebecca, Hildy attempts to protect her friend from a
potential scandal. Soon, however, Hildy is busy trying to protect her
own reputation. When a cluster of secrets becomes dangerously entwined,
the reckless behavior of one person threatens to expose the other, and
this darkly comic novel takes a chilling turn.
