From Meg Little Reilly, comes a stunning thriller that will keep readers up turning pages long into the night, EVERYTHING THAT FOLLOWS!
Grab your copy of EVERYTHING THAT FOLLOWS today!
CAUGHT IN THE BACKWASH, THEY HAVE LOST CONTROL OF THEIR LIVES…
For fans of Megan Abbott and Chris Bohjalian comes a novel of moral complexity about friends who must choose between self-preservation and doing the right thing in the wake of a fatal boating accident. Set in the moody off-season of Martha’s Vineyard, Everything That Follows is a plunge into the dark waters of secrets and flexible morals. The truth becomes whatever we say it is…
Around midnight, three friends take their partying from bar to boat on a misty fall evening. Just as the weather deteriorates, one of them suddenly and confusingly goes overboard. Is it an accident? The result of an unwanted advance? His body disappears quickly, silently, into the dark water. The circumstances are murky, but what is clear is that the other two need to notify the authorities. Minutes become hours become days as they hesitate, caught up in their guilt and hope that their friend has somehow made it safely to shore. As valuable time passes, they find themselves deep in a moral morass with huge implications as they struggle to move forward and live with their dark secret.
Grab your copy of EVERYTHING THAT FOLLOWS here!
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“[a] skillfully wrought tale of atonement in a frame of psychological suspense.” ~ Booklist
“Taut with moral complexity and a subtly building tension, this is the kind of story that punishes you if you dare to put it down. ” ~ Kim Cross, New York Times best selling author of WHAT STANDS IN A STORM
Excerpt
Sean
felt his arm pull back before he could think to stop it, and then the skin
around his knuckles was tightening, and with one furious swing, his fist
exploded into the side of Hunter’s left eye.
Hunter’s
hands rushed to his face just as his knees buckled and the blood around his
cheekbone started to pour. “Fuck, man!” He fell to the dock.
Kat ran
toward him.
Ashley
ran in after her.
This
wasn’t how it was supposed to go down. Sean looked on in horror as the women
tried to pry Hunter’s fingers from his face so they could examine the damage.
They looked at his busted eye, and then back and Sean, and then back to the
eye. This wasn’t what he’d intended to do. It wasn’t Sean’s plan.
“Fuck,
man!” Hunter yelled again as he stumbled up to his feet. He let his hands drop
to his sides and everyone took a good long look at what Sean had done.
It was
hard to make out the injury in the moonlight, but not impossible. Hunter’s eye
was red, the socket soon to be bruised and the broken skin beneath it was a bloody
mess. But it was a standard punch, probably no permanent damage incurred.
Sean was
relieved to see that he didn’t seem to have broken anything, butwas no less
ashamed. He hadn’t thrown a punch since ninth grade, and even then—after he
caught Bryan Alpo trying to steal his bike—he couldn’t believe he had it in
him. There may have been times in life when a punch was justified, but that
didn’t mean all men possessed such an impulse. Sean always thought he wasn’t
the punching type.
Hunter
stared at Sean, and everyone held their breaths. Would he punch back? If he
wanted to, Sean wouldn’t block it. That wouldn’t be right. He would let Hunter
take a big, premeditated swing as he stood there. He wanted
it now because this was almost worse than a punch. Hunter just stared in anger,
like he was considering every revenge possibility, and the longer he stared,
the more violent his busted eyes looked.
Just
fucking punch me, Sean thought.
Hunter
drew a wet breath. “I’m not sleeping with Kat,” he whispered. “I’m not.”
Sean
looked at Kat, who had been watching him. He believed her. He believed both of
them now. He turned back to Hunter and suddenly felt more horrible than he had
ever felt in his whole life. They really weren’t sleeping together. Something
was going on with his girlfriend, but it was clear now that it wasn’t an
affair. And he’d allowed himself to be seduced by outlandish theories from a
near stranger. Ashley.She was still there. Jesus, why was she still there?
About Meg Little Reilly
Meg Little Reilly is the author of the novels EVERYTHING THAT FOLLOWS and WE ARE UNPREPARED. She's a public radio commentator, essayist, and outdoors enthusiast. Prior to writing novels, Meg worked in national politics and the White House. She holds a B.A. from the University of Vermont and an M.A. from the George Washington University. These days, she lives in rural Vermont with her husband and two daughters.
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