You Were Made for This

A gripping page-turner for fans of The Woman in the Window and The Perfect Nanny, Michelle Sacks's You Were Made For This provocatively explores the darkest sides of marriage, motherhood, and friendship.

Doting wife, devoted husband, cherished child. Merry, Sam, and Conor are the perfect family in the perfect place. Merry adores the domestic life: baking, gardening, caring for her infant son. Sam, formerly an academic, is pursuing a new career as a filmmaker. Sometimes they can hardly believe how lucky they are. What perfect new lives they've built.

When Merry's childhood friend Frank visits their Swedish paradise, she immediately becomes part of the family. She bonds with Conor. And with Sam. She befriends the neighbors, and even finds herself embracing the domesticity she's always seemed to scorn. All their lives, Frank and Merry have been more like sisters than best friends. And that's why Frank soon sees the things others might miss. Treacherous things, which are almost impossible to believe when looking at this perfect family. But Frank, of all people, knows that the truth is rarely what you want the world to see.

Michelle Sacks is the author of the novel You Were Made for This and the story collection Stone Baby. She was born in South Africa and holds a master's degree in literature and film from the University of Cape Town. Her fiction has been shortlisted for the Commonwealth Short Story Prize and for two South African PEN Literary Awards.