Social Lives: A Novel

In a privileged, picture-perfect Connecticut town, one woman’s desperate act could bring the social order crashing down . . .

Wilshire, Connecticut, the gilded enclave of Manhattan’s prosperous elite, appears to be a vision of suburban tranquility: the mansions are tastefully designed, the lawns are expertly manicured, and the streets are as hushed as the complexities in the residents’ lives. While Wilshire’s husbands battle each other in the financial world, their wives manage their estates and raise the next elite generation. Some women are envied, some respected, and others simply tolerated. But regardless of where they stand, each is bound by the unyielding social structure that surrounds her.

Rosalyn Barlow is waging a battle of social manipulation to silence the gossip that threatens her daughter’s reputation, while her self-made billionaire husband grows ever more distant. But for fourteen-year-old Caitlin Barlow, navigating in a culture of wealth and promiscuity has become more perilous than either of her parents knows. Newcomer Sarah Livingston has disdain for everyone and everything around her, and a growing terror at having another child in a world she’s come to resent. As she’s pulled into the Barlow family’s storm, the walls begin to close in around her marriage and the life she once thought she wanted. And for Jacqueline Halstead, who’s just learned her husband is under investigation for fraud surrounding his hedge fund, saving her family from total ruin means doing the unthinkable—and shaking the Barlow family, Wilshire’s insular community, and herself to the core . . .

“Proving that money can never fill the empty places of the soul, Social Lives explores the suburban world of material excess with heartbreaking accuracy.” —Patti Callahan, New York Times–bestselling author of Once Upon a Wardrobe

© 2024 St. Martin's Press (Ebook): 9781429928236

Release date

Ebook: June 4, 2024