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Can you ever really know your neighbors? You wave as you drive past one another or chat on the way to the mailbox. You see them coming and going day after day. You may even become close friends with them. But yet, can you ever really know what is going on inside their homes? Do their walls disguise dark secrets that will never see the light of day?
Author Marybeth Mayhew Whalen tackles the dark secrets of the seemingly perfect American suburb of Sycamore Glen in North Carolina. The neighborhood is idyllic, filled with comfortable homes and beautiful gardens. The center of life over the summer is the community pool, where a terrible accident one day changes the course of several neighbors’ lives.
“The Things We Wish Were True” is told from the perspectives of several different characters.
Jencey grew up in Sycamore Glen. As a beautiful teenager, she was the victim of stalking, which led her to flee town for an undisclosed college up north. Years later, she returns home with her two young daughters after her marriage implodes.
Back in her childhood home, she reconnects with her best friend, Bryte, who is now married to Jencey’s first love, Everett. Bryte and Everett have a happy marriage, and a young son, Christopher. But Everett wants another child, something that Bryte, who struggled to get pregnant the first time, is not prepared for. The arrival of the gorgeous – and suddenly single – Jencey causes tensions to bubble up in their relationship.
Jencey, however, is drawn to Lance, another neighbor. Lance’s wife, Debra, is out of the picture, leaving him struggling to raise his two children on his own. His next-door neighbor, Zell, takes the kids off his hand as she’s having a difficult time with empty nest syndrome. She is hiding her own secrets about why Debra left.
The final protagonist is Cailey, a young girl who doesn’t fit into the perfect town. She has a single mother who works two jobs to support her and her younger brother, Cutter. They live in the house that’s considered the eyesore of the neighborhood. She spends her summer days at the pool with her brother, always on the outside.
What happens at the pool that summer helps to bring all of these characters together and forces their secrets into the open.
“The Things We Wish Were True” is a gripping novel. Whalen has a gift for description, making the reader feel as though they are smelling the pool’s chlorine and hearing the chatter of moms while their children splash in the water.
Each character has a distinctive voice, each standing out in their intertwined storylines. These are essentially good people. Yes, they have secrets. But this isn’t some sort of dark “Desperate Housewives” drama. Not everything hidden is scary or horrifying. But even the reveal of the more gentle secrets helps to bring healing and a new path forward to the characters.
By the end of the book, the neighborhood has been unraveled but starts to come back together as the various characters learn to forgive and put their lives back together. “The Things We Wish Were True” is a beautifully written, engaging novel highlighting the things we will never know about our neighbors, but making us wish we did.
