{"id":4173,"date":"2021-09-08T04:49:41","date_gmt":"2021-09-08T11:49:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/?p=4173"},"modified":"2021-09-08T04:49:41","modified_gmt":"2021-09-08T11:49:41","slug":"hank-phillippi-ryan-her-perfect-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/hank-phillippi-ryan-her-perfect-life\/","title":{"rendered":"Hank Phillippi Ryan: Her Perfect Life"},"content":{"rendered":"

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This book will be published on September 14.<\/em><\/p>\n

Hank Phillippi Ryan\u2019s story telling style is so smooth, her books fly through your reading fingers faster than you can think, almost.\u00a0 This novel may be the most emotional, heart felt story in all of Ryan\u2019s books.\u00a0 It\u2019s the alternating story of big sister, Cassie, and little sister, Lily.\u00a0 While the book opens with Lily telling the reader how perfect her sister is, it fast forwards in time to Lily\u2019s life, which does seem actually perfect.<\/p>\n

Lily has grown up into well known investigative reporter Lily Atwood, a beautiful, single mother living in a swanky area of Boston.\u00a0 She has the perfect daughter, Rowan, the perfect nanny, Petra, and the perfect assistant, Greer. But, Ryan seems to be asking, is anyone\u2019s life actually perfect?<\/p>\n

Back when Lily was seven, Cassie had gone to college and disappeared, leaving behind a grieving mother, grandmother and of course, sister.\u00a0 Lily has grown up looking everywhere for Cassie, always looking over her shoulder, thinking is that my sister? Is that her?\u00a0 It\u2019s something of an obsession, understandably so.\u00a0 This book is the story of this search coming to a head.<\/p>\n

Lily\u2019s other obsession is Rowan, and keeping her safe.\u00a0 Rowan\u2019s dad is not a part of her life. Lily is perfectly plugged in to Rowan\u2019s schedule, school, activities and friends, despite her busy career, a career supported and made possible by Greer, who toils in the background.\u00a0 Greer doesn\u2019t resent this, though she does seem to resent the fact that she feels she works harder than Lily does.<\/p>\n

I think that\u2019s a splitting hairs question, but it\u2019s definitely how Greer feels, and it fuels some of the events in the book.\u00a0 As Ryan alternates her narrative between the three women, something at which she excels, she plays out their stories by going back and forth in time and between the three of them.\u00a0 Because Ryan has given each woman a distinctive voice and personality, the switching is seamless.\u00a0 In less skilled hands, this could have been confusing, but instead, it\u2019s suspenseful.<\/p>\n

It also packs an emotional punch.\u00a0 As readers, we not only feel Lily\u2019s grief at losing her sister, but her fears of keeping Rowan safe and out of the spotlight, away from prying eyes.\u00a0 We see her balancing act as fans approach her on the street, and her graciousness in responding to them.\u00a0 But the balancing seems difficult.<\/p>\n

As readers, we follow Cassie\u2019s story and slowly learn what happened to her as a series of not even bad decisions, but just ones that were slightly off, send her life completely off track.\u00a0 And, as mentioned, we see Greer\u2019s frustration which I felt was also a thinly veiled jealousy.\u00a0 There are few more destructive emotions, in my opinion.<\/p>\n

As Cassie, Lily\u2019s, Rowan\u2019s and Greer\u2019s stories begin to intertwine and create conflicts, the suspense of the story ramps up and up.\u00a0 Lily is not sure who to trust, which is a noir story telling attribute, but Ryan\u2019s essentially optimistic world view prevents her from being a noir writer.\u00a0 While the end of the story questions if anyone has a perfect life, and doesn\u2019t tie everything up in a bow, it is still not lacking in hope for the future.<\/p>\n

I found all of the characters appealing and well drawn, which again, is not noir.\u00a0 In a noir novel every one of them could have been made awful and disagreeable.\u00a0 \u00a0To my mind, Ryan bucks trends and embraces her own inner voice, which lends her books a strength and appeal that I don\u2019t find in much contemporary domestic suspense, and it makes me revere and enjoy her books all that much more.\u00a0 This is a wonderful read, one you won\u2019t be able to put down, and one you will probably end in floods of tears.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This book will be published on September 14. Hank Phillippi Ryan\u2019s story telling style is so smooth, her books fly through your reading fingers faster than you can think, almost.\u00a0 This novel may be the most emotional, heart felt story in all of Ryan\u2019s books.\u00a0 It\u2019s the alternating story of big sister, Cassie, and little … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[370,671,194,44,669,617,373,670],"class_list":["post-4173","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","tag-boston","tag-domestic-drama","tag-forge-books","tag-hank-phillippi-ryan","tag-her-perfect-life","tag-journalism","tag-sisters","tag-suspense"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4173","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4173"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4173\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4184,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4173\/revisions\/4184"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4173"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4173"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4173"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}