My Perfect Wife, Clare Boyd

The evening ahead of her felt like the start of a long tightrope walk above a raging waterfall, where one misstep could be fatal…

Everyone in town knows Copper Lodge, that designer home with floor-to-ceiling windows that looms over the small red-brick houses on Connelly Close. And the couple who live there, Elizabeth and Lucas Huxley, with their two blonde-haired, cherubic children, are seemingly perfect, plucked right out of a magazine.

But meet Heather, the gardener’s daughter, arriving from the coast in her beat-up little car to spend the summer helping to prepare for the most important night of the Huxleys’ lives: a summer party designed to put Elizabeth’s past trauma behind them and save their family from financial ruin. Heather grew up in the grounds of this magnificent house, she knows its secrets…

As the night of the party draws near, the lawn is mown in neat lines, the champagne flutes are sparkling, and you could cut the tension with an over-polished knife. It’s Elizabeth’s one chance to prove to her husband that she’s on the mend, that she can handle something as simple as a drinks reception without snapping under the pressure. If she makes one mistake, he’ll try to take her children away.

Heather wants to stay as far away from the party – and the Huxleys – as possible, but something dark is dragging her back: the secret she’s been keeping since she was a teenager is about to explode like the fireworks over Copper Lodge…