Not everything that looks perfect is safe to consume.
Rose Sullivan Montgomery is a Michelin-starred chef who traded the kitchen for the spotlight—and paid for it. Accused of her husband’s brutal murder, she walked away with an acquittal, but in the court of public opinion, she’s still a murderer capitalizing on rich people immunity. With her dog Eamon and her youngest sister Billie nearby, she retreats to Millstone Falls, a quiet upstate New York community unprepared for her particular brand of fame. A kind of self-imposed exile, where she kneads the past into shapes almost bearable and indulges fantasies that always circle back to her eldest sister’s husband—the magnetic Mark Mulroney.
Two nights before her birthday, a reluctant evening out yanks Rose from her cocoon of safety, straight into the arms of Cain Hawkings, a developer gentrifying the town. What was supposed to be a fleeting distraction quickly turns sour when his interest grows too intense to stay casual, his knowledge too personal for a fan, his actions too hauntingly familiar to ignore. If the last five years taught her anything, it was to be wary of the things pretty on the outside. She was about to learn she’d been living on less truth and more a carefully plated version of it.
And some things, once exposed to heat, don’t transform. They burn.
