Financially struggling writer Lowen Ashleigh seemingly receives the opportunity of a life time when Jeremy Crawford, husband of bestselling author Verity Crawford, hires her to complete the remaining books in his wife's successful series. Due to heavy brain damage sustained in a car accident, Verity is unable to finish the work herself.
Shortly after arriving and settling in at the Crawford home, Lowen goes through Verity's outlines and notes, hoping to find material that will help her emulate Verity's writing. She finds instead a manuscript for Verity's unfinished autobiography, detailing not only what truly happened on the day Verity's daughter died, but also Verity's true self.
Lowen chooses to keep the manuscript a secret from Jeremy, knowing that its contents would devastate the still grieving father, yet she cannot resist reading it herself and soon realizes how much she could stand to benefit from revealing the truth.
Contains examples of:
- Abusive Parent: Verity hated her twin daughters from the moment of their conception, believing Jeremy would always love them more than her and so tried everything in her power to get rid of them before they were even born. Afterward she only took the bare minimum of care for them and ignored it when they cried. Even as she comes to love at least one of them, her delusional believe that the second daughter is secretly planning to kill the first leads her to try and murder said daughter and make it look like an accident. Subverted, as her letter reveals she exaggerated and inverted all her feelings about the pregnancy in the autobiography, which implies she actually loved both of the girls and doted on them.
- Ambiguous Situation: Was the autobiography really just a writing exercise like Verity claims in her letter? Or is the letter yet another one of her attempts to gain Jeremy's sympathy and convince him she really was the perfect wife?
- Asshole Victim: Jeremy and Lowen end up killing Verity after Lowen reveals Verity's autobiography to him. Lowen doesn't feel too bad about it, since Verity was a manipulative, jealous ghoul of a woman who faked a disability for months on end. Horrifically subverted when Lowen ends up finding a secret letter from Verity to Jeremy in which she reveals that none of the things she wrote in her autobiography were true: The autobiography was a writing exercise for her upcoming books. Verity intentionally inverted and exaggerated her actions, thoughts and feelings when writing it, meaning the real Verity wasn't actually the monster Lowen came to believe she was and her and Jeremy murdered an innocent woman.
- Creepy Child: Crew, Jeremy's and Verity's son. He's eerily quiet and seems to take an instant dislike to Lowen. Most likely because he recognizes the danger she could, and eventually does, pose for his mother's plans.
- Death of a Child: Jeremy and Verity's twin daughters Chastin and Harper died before the events of the novel. Chastin died of an allergic reaction, while Harper drowned when the boat her, Verity and Crew were on capsized. Verity's autobiography reveals that she capsized the boat on purpose to murder Harper, due to a delusional belief that Harper was somehow responsible for her sister's death. However, Verity's letter seems to confirm that it actually was an unlucky accident and that Verity had nothing to do with it.
- Green-Eyed Monster: Verity was extremely possessive of Jeremy, to the point she grew resentful of her two daughters for taking some of his love when they were still in the womb and attempted to force a miscarriage so she wouldn't have to share Jeremy with the twins. Subverted, as Verity's letter implies her immense feelings of jealousy as well as her hatred for the girls were most likely inverted and exaggerated traits.
- Hate Sink: Verity is obviously intended to be this. Lowen spends several paragraphs seething about what a monster she is, at one point even musing that she'd deserve to die for being such an abusive mother and Manipulative Bitch. Even Verity herself acknowledges in the foreword to her autobiography that anyone reading it will most likely come to despise her for all the things she describes herself saying and doing. Subverted with The Reveal that the autobiography was merely a writing exercise, with Verity intentionally writing the opposite of what she felt about all the events detailed therein in order to get a better feel for writing from a villainous point of view. The real Verity was every bit the loving mother and wife Jeremy perceived her as... maybe.
- Obfuscating Disability: Lowen begins to suspect that Verity is doing this, as she catches the other woman staring at her several times and even hears her move around when she should be in a vegetative state. She tells Jeremy about her suspicions, he points out that Verity would not only need to fool countless medical professionals for that bluff, but would also have to let herself be manhandled every day without the slightest bit of resistance. Turns out she did fake it, but the reason behind it is more sympathetic than one might think at first.
- Poor Communication Kills:
- After the accident that killed Harper, Jeremy came across Verity's autobiography. Not knowing that it was merely a writing exercise and that none of the things written in it actually reflected what Verity thought and did in real life, he snapped and attempted to kill her by crashing their car with both of them in it. Verity miraculously emerged unscathed, but was too scared to attempt to explain herself to him, instead pretending to have brain damage.
- However, Verity keeping up the charade for several months proves to be the last straw for Jeremy. When the ruse is revealed thanks to Lowen, Jeremy attacks Verity and actually murders her, with Lowen encouraging him to Make It Look Like an Accident.
- Really Gets Around: Verity certainly wasn't chaste before meeting Jeremy, a fact she proudly flaunts in her autobiography. Jeremy himself also admits that he's received blow-jobs from ten different women before meeting Verity when she asks him.
- Second Love: Jeremy eventually admits to Lowen that she has been this for him ever since he first met her.
- Shrinking Violet: Lowen is reclusive and insecure, so much so she refuses to do book tours, due to not wanting to meet her readers out of a fear they'll be disappointed when seeing her true self.
- Sympathetic Adulterer: Lowen thinks several times about how no one could really blame Jeremy if he decided to look for love somewhere else, preferably her, since his wife's condition makes her basically unresponsive.
