Everyone has gathered at an exclusive resort and spa for the wedding of Whitney and Arthur. Whitney has invited her three best friends from college—Ginger, Emily, and Kate—even though they've not spoken much in all the years that have passed. (Especially Ginger and Emily, who still harbor a serious grudge from those carefree days of their youth.)
Emily is a barely functioning alcoholic, although she drinks to blot out the painful memories of events she wishes she could have prevented. When she meets a handsome man on the plane ride to the wedding she thinks there may be a chance that the week won't be all bad, but her eyes are opened pretty quickly.
Ginger married her college boyfriend and they have three children. The idyllic family life she dreamed of isn't quite the reality she has, and she finds herself barely hanging on at times. But she's determined that the wedding will be a chance for her to show off her family, even as they're all causing her to lose her sanity, especially her teenage daughter who seems to be maturing faster than Ginger can handle.
Kate is a successful lawyer, but all the money in the world can't buy the baby she wants more than anything. She and her handsome boyfriend are a beautiful couple on the outside, but multiple attempts to conceive have frayed their relationship to its core.
In separate encounters, the three women meet Lulu, a woman of nearly 70 years old who has been married five times, but who realizes her fifth husband may very well be the love of her life. But he seems to be hiding something, and she hopes it isn't that he's ready to end their marriage.
One night, a man is found dead. Who is he, and why did Emily, Ginger, Kate, and Lulu all admit that they're the one who killed him, and that they acted alone? Who are they trying to protect, and why?
Pretty Guilty Women juxtaposes the police interrogation of the four women and other bystanders at the resort with profiles of each of their lives and the challenges they face, and then the narrative starts to move toward the murder. There are lots of twists and turns, lots of events which lead to even more questions. While I didn't find the actual victim particularly surprising, the mysteries kept on coming.
I didn't love this quite as much as I hoped I would, as I usually enjoy books like these. I found the multiple narrative threads exhausting to follow after a while, and it took some time before things really came to a head. The book did touch on some very serious issues and raise some interesting questions, though, and Lamanna created some fascinating, flawed characters.
If it were still beach season, this might be the perfect beach book!
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