After You

AUTHOR: Julie Buxbaum
PAGES: 336
WEBSITE: http://www.juliebuxbaum.com/
TWITTER: @juliebux

A moving story about dealing with loss and moving forward. When Ellie gets the news her best friend Lucy has been murdered she uproots from the life she shares with her husband in America to go and be with Lucy's daughter Sophie and husband Greg in Notting Hill.
Ellie's refusal to come back home creates tension in her own marriage. She decides its more important to devote herself to helping Lucy's eight year old daughter heal.
"I wish I were really young, like you. Eight is, like the best age."
"Really?"
"I don't know. To be honest, I don't remember being eight."
"That's good."
"Why?"
"I don't want to remember being eight either."

Ellie discovers Lucy's life was not as perfect as she had be letting on and Lucy was definitely not the perfect person she had always thought. They had been best friends since they were children and now Ellie is discovering she didn't know this Lucy, this Lucy that was capable of such horrible things, this Lucy that would be willing to destroy the people she loved to get what she wanted.
Ellie had not planned on staying in London so long but the longer she stays the more distance she is creating in her marriage. She had ran to London without a second thought. Had she come to help or escape?
Ellie has to look honestly at the person she is/was and decide if she wants to try and save her marriage. She must take responsibility for the past and try and see through her husbands eyes, see his pain and loss.
But she could always chose to live in this other world, Lucy's world, with Sophie and Greg.
"Maybe we need to eat and digest and sh!t out all of the ugly things in the world and leave the cute to frolic and nibble on leaves."