This month marks one year since Between the Lines began, and it feels fitting to celebrate with a book that grew on me the same way this column has. “Worse Than Strangers” by Kyleigh Leddy hit bookstores on June 23 from Gallery Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster. It is a 320-page hardcover debut novel, and it is exactly the kind of sun-warmed story that can be enjoyed from Watch Hill to Block Island.
Leddy, a licensed therapist who teaches at Boston College, previously published a memoir called “The Perfect Other.” This is her first work of fiction, and she has shared in interviews that she is a devoted Jane Austen reader who chose to reimagine “Persuasion,” her favorite of Austen’s novels, through a modern, mother-daughter lens.
The novel follows Rose Gardner and her daughter, Lily, who describe themselves as best friends. When Lily is fired from her dream job at a magazine in New York City, she retreats to the family cottage in Siasconset, a village on Nantucket, hoping for a quiet reset. Instead, she runs into her ex at the grocery store holding hands with a fiancée she never knew existed. She begins to find her footing after securing a job at the local yacht club, where she meets Theo, a tennis pro who is attracted to her but reluctant to admit it.
Rose has a reckoning awaiting her as well. The guest cottage on their property has a new summer tenant, Thomas Wentworth, the man Rose knew as Tommy, her first love and the one who got away.
My first chapters with this book felt very tentative. Early on, “Worse Than Strangers” read like a starter novel — careful, a little formulaic, hitting beach read beats without much risk. I honestly had little faith it would improve. The deeper I was drawn into Rose and Lily’s stories, though, the more invested I became.
At this stage in my life, I could not fully see myself in either character, as I am neither 25 nor a 50-year-old single mother with a 25-year-old child. What kept me engaged, however, were the real-life struggles they both endured. Both women wrestled with grief, generational conflict, romantic and financial hurdles, and uncertainties surrounding their careers.
The tension between Rose and Tommy, and between Lily and Theo, never tips into manufactured or silly conflict. The drama grows from real stakes, family history, bad timing, and scars of the past. By the time I reached the book’s climax, I was fully invested — interested even — and I was satisfied with the book’s resolution. I closed the back cover feeling the ending had been earned.
* ‘Between the Lines’ is a monthly book review column from freelance reporter Stephanie Bernaba. For the full story, pick up a copy of this week's Independent on newsstands now or purchase a subscription to our E-Edition by clicking here.