The Happiness Thief

Forty-one-year-old Natalie Greene lost her mom and her childhood memories in a car crash two decades ago. What remains is a haunting feeling that she was responsible for her mother’s death. After her husband leaves for another woman, Natalie accompanies her famous stepsister, Isabel Walker (aka “The Happiness Guru”) on a retreat to the Cayman Islands. There, a late-night collision triggers Natalie’s long-buried trauma and a heightened sense of guilt.

Upon returning home to Boston, Natalie tries to settle back into her life as a food photographer and single mother to a teenage daughter—but then, one day, an anonymous email arrives about the Cayman accident that suggests foul play. In her search for the truth, Natalie must deal with a mix of fear, confusion, and suspects. With the help of Isabel and an attractive journalist, she uncovers a trail of deceit that begins on that deserted Caribbean road, circles back home, and ends in the most unexpected of places.

Publication Date: May 18, 2021 

Author: Nicole Bokat

Description

2021 Foreword INDIES Awards Finalist (Thriller & Suspense)

“So, so smart, and as downright dangerous a read as the edge of a razor,  Bokat’s book is a masterful study of memory, family, and the lies that derail us.  Don’t even dare to think you’ll get any sleep once you start reading.”
—Caroline Leavitt, New York Times best-selling author of Pictures of You and With or Without You

“Nicole Bokat has the rare and precious gift of being both a master storyteller and an elegant poet. Each and every sentence dazzles in this intelligent and fiery tale about family, loss, and what it means to be feel happy, whole.”
—Judy Batalion, author of The Light of Days: The Untold Story of Women Resistance Fighters in Hitler’s Ghettos and White Walls

The Happiness Thief  is a beautifully written, heart-thundering  page-turner. I tore through it, desperate to discover answers. The novel’s characters are as rich and complex as you and I.”
—Aspen Matis, #1 Amazon best-selling author of  Your Blue Is Not My Blue  and  Girl in the Woods

About the Author

Nicole Bokat is the author of the novels Redeeming Eve and What Matters Most. Redeeming Eve was nominated for both the Hemingway Foundation/PEN award and the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize for Fiction. She’s also published The Novels of Margaret Drabble: This Freudian Family Nexus. She received her PhD from New York University and has taught at NYU, Hunter College, and The New School. Her essays and articles have appeared in The New York Times, Parents magazine, The Forward, and at More.com. She lives with her husband in New Jersey and has two grown sons.

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