Mrs.

November 15, 2017

Philippa Lye left her unsavory single life behind when she married wealthy New York City banker Jed Skinker. She is the envy of every woman of the New York elite. In their view she seems to have achieved perfection--beauty, wealth, a good marriage, and social standing. Yet Philippa doesn't appear to care about any of that. She is somehow damaged by the events of her past and unconnected to the reality of her present. As happens in very small social circles, Philippa's past catches up with her. In a very public effort to resolve her conflict, the world shifts around her with surprising results. Macy (The Fundamentals of Play; Spoiled) creates a delightful mix of characters whose circumstances bring them together while their motivations keep them apart. She intersperses the catty asides of the society ladies with the musings of the banker and the ambitions of the district attorney. Social critique and star-crossed fates mingle here. VERDICT Recommended for readers of general fiction.--Joanna Burkhardt, Univ. of Rhode Island Libs., Providence

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

December 4, 2017
Macy (The Fundamentals of Play) penetrates the gossipy lives of well-off parents in New York City’s Upper East Side in this fresh take on the society novel. Gwen Hogan, Philippa Lye, and Minnie Curtis are all married to powerful men and send their children to the prestigious St. Timothy’s preschool. Gwen, married to a prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney’s Office, recently moved to Manhattan and is uncomfortable living in New York City. Philippa, married to the owner of an investment bank, seems both effortlessly stylish and aloof. Minnie, the wife of a wealthy financier, takes an unapologetic pleasure in her financial security that makes the other mothers uncomfortable. The three women bond over school gossip and the difficulties of parenthood, unaware that Gwen’s husband is conducting an insider trading investigation that implicates both Philippa and Minnie’s husbands. Macy switches perspective each chapter, telling her story from the points of view of protagonists, peripheral characters, and even Greek-style choruses. The attention to behavioral detail, especially when seen through the eyes of Philippa’s young daughter Laura, is piercing and honest. Ultimately, a thesis emerges about the simplicity and selfishness of human nature.

Starred review from December 1, 2017
Gwen Hogan and her husband, Dan, a U.S. attorney, do not fit in with the elite families at St. Timothy's preschool in Manhattan, where other mothers often mistake Gwen for a nanny at pick-up time. However, Gwen is not a total stranger to the other St. Tim's mothers. She knew Philippa Lye, for one, while they grew up in Massachusetts, back before Philippa's modeling career and her marriage to banker Jed Skinker. In January, a new child joins the school, and her mother, Minnie Curtis, is set on befriending Philippa to further her own secret agenda. Soon Dan discovers a link between Philippa's past and his current investigation into a criminal he couldn't prosecute years earlier. Macy (The Fundamentals of Play, 2000; Spoiled, 2009) creates a masterful portrait of marriage, ambition, betrayal, power, and secrets. She tells the stories of the Hogan, Skinker, and Curtis families from varied perspectives, building the tension to heartbreaking heights and grappling with the long-term ripples of trauma and characters' failures to one another throughout the complex and impossible-to-put-down novel. Readers will remember the three families long after the last pages.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)