When Anthony sends his weekly “garbage day” text and Viola replies, “every day is garbage day with you, darling,” she knows she can’t endure their suffocating forty-year marriage much longer. After her mother dies, she leaves her unraveling life in California to settle the estate in a Massachusetts beach town in January.

Grief gives way to revelation when Viola learns her mother and Anthony spent their lives upholding a devastating lie. Intent on punishing her husband, she sets out to indulge her worst impulses. After a night of hard drinking with her free-spirited friend from high school days, Viola takes a polar plunge, where a would-be rescuer sparks her dormant desire—then vanishes.

While Viola pursues the mystery man, a winter nor’easter assails the family home perched on stilts beside the relentless Atlantic, eager to swallow her newfound agency. Her fiery arguments with Mom’s ghost, the inexplicable theft of Mom’s ashes, and Anthony’s impending arrival threaten to crush her last chance for a new life and new love.

"Viola’s story captivates—and highlights that it’s never too late to build courage, face your fears, and start anew." —BookLife Reviews by Publishers Weekly

About the Author

Award-winning novelist Margie Benedict writes emotionally resonant, genre-defying fiction rooted in the power of second chances. From coastal suspense to time-twisted mysteries and sweeping speculative worlds, her stories follow characters who rise, reclaim their agency, and rewrite their destinies.

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