Another American novel that has a lot going for it. It has been a number one New York Times bestseller and also been featured in Reese Witherspoon's book club, so seemed like a safe bet when I was choosing a book in the library.
It's about a husband and father who suddenly disappears, and shortly afterwards a few things happen that suggest to his wife that he may not have been the man she thought she married. Hannah is Owen's fairly recent second wife, and also step mother to his sixteen year old daughter Bailey, so there is a whole section of both their lives that she knows very little about. They have all been living together on a house boat in Sausalito, Northern California, and before that Hannah had been making a living as a wood turner making bespoke pieces of furniture for wealthy clients in New York. She made the move over to California just before her marriage to Owen, and he told her that before he moved to the houseboat he and Bailey had been living in Massachusetts.
Owen was a clever man who had been working in a senior position at 'The Shop' which is one of the top software companies in America. He was well respected and his coding work was making advances in a field of digital security that would bring vast profits to the company when the new product was launched. Then the company owner began selling it before the final work was done and all the glory was quickly starting to unravel. The owner was arrested and charged with fraud and that's when Owen disappeared. His wife was left to find out what he knew about the fraud and whether he had played any part in it.
This is a modern tale with plenty of twists and turns, and as well as looking at what makes a second marriage work, it also explores the relationship between a teenage girl with a step mother she still has to grow to trust. It takes in the benefits and pitfalls of the digital age, and overall it made a good read, so I could see how it made it to being one of Reese Witherspoon's picks.
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