HER PERFECT LIFE

USA Today bestselling author Hank Phillippi Ryan has won five Agatha Awards in addition to Anthony, Macavity, Daphne du Maurier, and Mary Higgins Clark Awards. As on-air investigative reporter for Boston’s WHDH-TV, she’s won 37 Emmys and many more journalism honors, and her work has resulted in new laws, criminals sent to prison, homes saved from foreclosure, and millions of dollars in restitution for victims and consumers. A past president of National Sisters in Crime and founder of MWA University, her novels include Trust Me, The Murder List, the Charlotte McNally series (starting with Prime Time), and the Jane Ryland series (which begins with The Other Woman). Ryan lives in Boston with her husband, a nationally renowned civil rights and criminal defense attorney.

Author Website

“Keep[s] the reader guessing about characters’ identities and different versions of events as the tension mounts…a well-crafted plot and strong female characters drive a satisfying psychological thriller.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“Shocking, suspenseful, with clever twists and an abundance of secrets. Her Perfect Life kept me guessing until the end. I loved it!” —B. A. Paris, internationally bestselling author of The Therapist and Behind Closed Doors

“Superlative…this is a fast-paced, surprise-packed treat.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“When people say a book is a page-turner, they must be talking about Hank Phillippi Ryan. Her Perfect Life has everything: Compelling characters, a captivating story, and a pace that’ll have you turning the pages deep into the night. You can’t go wrong with a Ryan book, and this one is no exception.” —Samantha Downing, bestselling author of My Lovely Wife

“Tense and twisty…You will read this in one sitting!” —Julie Clark, New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of The Last Flight

“There’s a reason Hank Philippi Ryan keeps winning so many awards—she is a master at crafting suspense around fully formed characters with real emotion and depth. A mesmerizing thrill ride!”—Kimberly Belle, internationally bestselling author of Dear Wife and Stranger in the Lake

1. What does Lily’s quest for perfection say about her state of mind? How does her success empower her for further achievements? How does her success make her vulnerable?
2. What were your initial theories about Cassie’s disappearance? How did your impressions of the characters shift as new details were revealed?
3. What was it like to read Greer’s point of view? What is at the root of her occasional resentment? How do her observations differ from Lily’s?
4. Lily uses story tips from the anonymous Mr. Smith to unearth her award-winning news reports. Do you think about where reporters get their information, and how they have to decide which sources to trust? Do you think Lily’s desire for a good story affected her decision-making?
5. Even with Petra’s help, Lily naturally experiences stress as she manages her career along with her role as a single parent. What are the best traits that she brings to motherhood? Did the loss of Cassie make her overprotective or exceptionally skilled at keeping her child safe?
6. What is special about Rowen’s view of the world? How does it compare to the perceptions young Lily had when she was a little girl? What truths appear with clarity through the eyes of a child?
7. The author of the novel is an award-winning investigative reporter herself. How does this enhance the way she tells a story and the way she delivers startling yet all-too-human clues?
8. When Banning comes into Lily’s life, she doesn’t trust him from the very beginning. But she thinks he may have information she needs, and as a result, she takes some personal risks in order to get answers about the people she cares about. What would you have done?
9. Does Cassie’s path become entwined with Jem Duggan’s because she is naïve or because she is more mature than the other college freshmen in her circle (including her roommate)? Was her disappearance simply an unavoidable consequence of her fate?
10. If you were a judge deciding whether Lily should share joint custody of Rowen with Sam, how would you rule? Which factors should matter the most when determining what will be best for Rowen?
11. How did you react when the truth was revealed? What would you have done in Cassie’s situation? What did you think when you learned how the detective had manipulated the young woman—and used her guilt—for his own benefit?
12. Though Lily is much younger than Cassie, she experiences a powerful bond with her big sister through memories of their shared past. What is special about relationships between sisters? Which family members played a part in your most important childhood memories?

PROLOGUE

They say you can’t choose your family, but if you could, I would still have chosen Cassie.

She was my big sister, and everything she did was perfect. Her perfect dark hair, which curled or didn’t depending on what Cassie wanted. She had perfect friends, and perfect dates, and whispered phone calls, and boys came to pick her up in their cars. She got to wear lipstick. Once when I sneaked hers and tried it, she caught me. She didn’t even laugh. Or yell. Or tell on me.

When Cassie went away to college that year, something changed. She came home for winter break, but she stayed in her room. My mother and I couldn’t figure out what she was doing. Cassie would come out only to make cups of coffee, then stare out the window at our snow-dappled backyard, at the pond where she’d tried to teach me to ice-skate, and at the big sycamore tree where we once found a huge hornets’ nest that fell in a summer wind. I’d picked it up, and wanted to save it for show-and-tell, but Cassie screamed and told me it was full of bugs. She grabbed it from me, and one stung her. She didn’t even cry.

We had a dog, too, a dear and dopey rescue named Pooch. Cassie never liked the name, but our dad did. And then Dad died, and Cassie never wanted to change Pooch’s name again.

When she left for college, Mumma kept her room just the way it was, with all her stuffed animals and souvenirs and photographs, and didn’t let me move out of my little bedroom into her bigger one. Cassie was always the favorite, and I always thought of it as her right.

That first college winter vacation, my mother found a notebook, one of those black ones with white dots on the cover. She opened it to the first page. I saw her face change. Without a word, Mumma turned the notebook to show me. Cassie had drawn a calendar, with carefully ruled pencil lines spaced equally apart. November. Then December. She’d crossed off the days, each one, with an X in black marker.

“Poor Cassie,” Mumma said to me. I remember how soft her voice was, carrying an undercurrent of worry or sorrow. “I wonder what day she’s waiting for. This is not the work of a happy person.”

“I know,” I’d agreed, nodding sagely, though at age seven, I didn’t really know. And it was almost as if Mumma wasn’t talking to me, but just to herself. I do remember how I felt then, even remember my eyes widening in fear of things, dark things or scary things, under the bed or in the closet—things that kids’ imaginations, if they’re lucky, conjure as murky vanishing faraway nothings. Things that come in the night. Visitors. My mother’s worry was contagious, too, a chronic disease I have yet to conquer. “Mumma? What do you think is wrong with Cassie?”

And then Cassie was gone.

The police said they looked and looked for her, even said they’d tried to make sense of the calendar she’d left behind. My mother got sicker and sicker waiting for her.

Years later, I went off to college myself. By then, Pooch had died.

Mumma eventually died, too, never knowing.

And then there was only me.

What happened to Cassie? I imagined her dead, of course. I’d imagined her kidnapped, imprisoned, hidden, brainwashed, indentured, enslaved, made into a princess, transported by aliens to their faraway planet. I saw her in grocery stores, on book covers, in the backgrounds of movies, a lifted shoulder or sunlight on a cheekbone, that little dance she did when she was happy. Once I saw the back of her head three rows in front of me on a plane from Boston to New Orleans and leaped out of my seat with the seat belt sign still on, but it wasn’t her dark hair and not her thin shoulders, not her quizzical smile after my lame Oh, I thought I knew you excuse.

We were too far apart in age, I guess, to have that sister connection some people talk about, the sense of knowing where the other is, or when they’re upset. Sure, she was my only big sister. But she was already wrapped up in her own concerns, and I was a goofy little kid, and my sibling worship didn’t have the time to evolve into mystical bonding. Was she still alive?

I still have a picture of her and Pooch, the one Dad took with his camera that wasn’t a phone. The almost-sepia rectangle of daughter and dog is faded now, and cracking, with old-fashioned wavy once-white edges. The original one is in my apartment, and the copy thumbtacked to the bulletin board over my desk at Channel 6.

At some point you have to stop looking, I told myself. But still. If she did something truly bad, how much did I want to know? How would that knowledge change my life? My career? Maybe it’s better for me to pretend she never existed.

But I know she did exist.

Sometimes it feels like she still comes to me in my dreams, this time asking me to find her. So I couldn’t help but imagine that; approaching her, confronting her, gently, gingerly, or standing in her line of sight to see if there was a glimmer.

Would I even recognize my big sister after all this time? I was seven when she vanished, and Cassie was eighteen, so … maybe.

Maybe not.

Or maybe she’ll recognize me. She’ll find me.