This is told through four alternating views founded on the themes female friendship and marriage, as you can tell it is a reoccurring base in her books. 

Three college friends are invited by their old dorky college friend, Dwight who has become a computer millionaire. The millionaire and his wife decided to have a little reunion in their Jaimacian villa as his birthday present, oh la la. 

Some spoilers down below.

Now first POV is Tina, the mom of the group. Literally, she has four little children running on her heels and she is the perfect PTA mom. She has a solid relationship with her husband, Gio but since money is tight, they don’t spend time as much because he is needed at work. As you can tell therein lies the problem. While Tina desperately feels a need to escape her hectic home, during the vacation she is hit by “middle age” blues where she feels she isn’t as appealing to her husband and that he is into her “hotter” friend. Of course, as the book goes on she realizes that while she may want to leave her house, that does NOT make her a bad mom. Nor does it mean she doesn’t love her kids. She just needs a break. Overall, her arc is fine, a bit of the same arc repeated in The Perfect Neighbors but nice nonetheless.

Allie, another team mom type. More of the peace maker than the leader. Makes sense since she is a social worker. However because of seeing how all other people suffer, it makes her acutely aware of how she feels “underserving” of all the riches she has. The major deal is that she has been diagnosed with ASL diseas, a genetic illness. Not diagnosed, but that there was a possibility that she would have it. Not wanting to ruin the big vacation she keeps to herself but starts analyzing her whole life. Mainly her marriage. She doesn’t want to leave her kids alone, but she also thinks her husband wouldn’t be able to handle it. He hardly helped out with administering Tylenol, how would he be able to handle her with a fatal illness?

She also falls into old habits with Dwight who had a crush on her in college. With all the stress, she falls for him. Now her arc was the most interesting since she comes to realize that her “love” for Dwaight was based on forgetting the current stress and a case of right person at the right time. She also sees why she stays by her husband. He’s loyal, he loves her. Possible illness or no. Which helps her move on. 

Savannah, classic party girl of the group. She causes the most friction with her flirty ways. Savannah is going through a rough patch where her husband moved out to live with the much younger “The Nurse” whom he cheated on her with. This also brings out old scars that Savannah refuses to acknowledge like her parent’s divorce, and lack of affection. Determined to get over her ex husband, she contacts him to come to Jaimaca so she could get closure. There she realizes that her unresolved feelings for Gary have become more complicated by seeing him again.

Pauline is the outsider, the wife of Dwight who arranged this bash. She is seen as standoffish and snobby and cold. But her POV brings out the hidden fears. Her sister, Theresa has a severe form of learning disability similar to Down Syndrome which she keeps from Dwight in fear that he would not like it. Not that he is against it just that if they do have a child it may end up like her sister.

Yes, so this all moves to the bedroom where she happily says she wants a child but doesn’t help the consummation process at all. This of course, creates a distance between her and Dwight as Dwight feels he isn’t able to “do his manly job” which is why HE briefly returns Allie’s advances. Here was also a great character arc as they resolve themselves in the end where Pauline sees how her ways had hurt their marriage and that even though he broke her trust, she had never trusted him in the first place. So there they resolve to bring a new trust to their relationship. 

Another admirable book. 4 stars