The Things We Wish Were True<\/i> is a brilliant glimpse into the realities of suburban life. Startling. Compelling. Redemptive. It\u2019s the kind of story that makes us wonder how well we really know ourselves\u2014much less our neighbors. Marybeth Whalen has a gift for turning over the pretty surfaces of life, finding the hidden things beneath, and then exposing them to the light. I found myself drawn in, unable to look away from these characters and their dark, tender, familiar lives. I utterly loved this novel.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
From the outside, Sycamore Glen, North Carolina, might look like the perfect all-American neighborhood. But behind the white picket fences lies a web of secrets that reach from house to house.<\/p>\n
Up and down the streets, neighbors quietly bear the weight of their own pasts\u2014until an accident at the community pool upsets the delicate equilibrium. And when tragic circumstances compel a woman to return to Sycamore Glen after years of self-imposed banishment, the tangle of the neighbors\u2019 intertwined lives begins to unravel.<\/p>\n
During the course of a sweltering summer, long-buried secrets are revealed, and the neighbors learn that it\u2019s impossible to really know those closest to us. But is it impossible to love and forgive them?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":4588,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":""},"product_cat":[23],"product_tag":[],"yoast_head":"\n