Best Intentions »

What happens when you think you know the person you love — and you're dead wrong?

From the acclaimed author of Waiting to Surface comes the story of four college friends whose reunion reawakens old desires and grudges — with fatal results.

After tossing and turning all night, thirty-nine-year-old Lisa Barkley wakes up well before her alarm sounds. With two daughters about to start another year at their elite Upper East Side private school and her own career hitting a wall, the effort of trying to stay afloat in that privileged world of six-story town houses and European jaunts has become increasingly difficult, especially as Manhattan descends into an economic freefall.

As Lisa looks over at her sleeping husband, Sam, she can't help but feel that their fifteen-year marriage is in a funk that she isn't able to place. She tries to shake it off and tells herself that the strain must be due to their mounting financial pressures. But later that morning, as her family eats breakfast in the next room, Lisa finds herself checking Sam's voicemail and hears a whispered phone call from a woman he is to meet that night. Is he having an affair?

When Lisa shares her suspicions with her best friend, Deirdre, at their weekly breakfast, Deirdre claims it can't be true. But how can Lisa fully trust her opinion when Deirdre is still single and mired in an obsessive affair with a glamorous photographer even as it hovers on the edge of danger?

When Deirdre's former college flame, Jack, comes to town and the two couples meet to cele-brate his fortieth birthday, the stage is set for an explosiveT series of discoveries with devastatingconsequences.

Filled with suspense and provocative ques-tions about the relationships we value most, Best Intentions is a tightly woven drama of love, friendship and betrayal.

Publishers Weekly

Financial troubles and more test the marriage of a downtown Manhattan career mom and her business journalist husband in this writerly page-turner from Listfield (Waiting to Surface). Sam and Lisa Barkley, who were college sweethearts, can just afford to send their two daughters to an Upper East Side private girls' school, though Lisa, whose family "struggled into the middle class," wonders if a public school "gifted" program would've been a better choice. Meanwhile, Sam's late-night phone calls and odd absences from his office lead her to accuse him of having an affair. Lisa confides her fears to her best friend from college, Deirdre Cushing, whose mysterious death heightens the tension and mistrust between Lisa and Sam. While the author's penchant for punch lines and cliffhangers can come across as a stylistic tic, deft pacing keeps the action moving and the reader guessing. Listfield ensures no character is above suspicion, and in the end, no one is without blame. (May)

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