• Title:  The One You’re With
• Author:  Lauren K. Denton
• Genre:  Fiction
• Rating:  4 out of 5

High-school sweethearts Mac and Edie Swan lead a seemingly picture-perfect life in the sleepy-sweet community of Oak Hill, near Mobile, Alabama. Edie is a respected interior designer, Mac is a beloved pediatrician, and they have two great kids and a historic home on tree-lined Linden Avenue. From the outside, the Swan family is the definition of “the good life.” And life is good—mostly. Until a young woman walks into Mac’s office one day. A young woman whose very existence threatens all Mac and Edie have built and all they think they know about each other.

Nineteen years after a summer apart, with a family and established lives and careers, the past that Mac and Edie thought they left behind has come back to greet them. For the first time, constants in their lives are called into question: their roles as parents, their reputation as upstanding members of the community, and the very foundations of their marriage. As they wade through the upheaval in both their family and professional lives, they must each examine choices they made long ago and chart a new course for their future.

I love Lauren K. Denton’s novels and always look forward to their release, so I was excited to read this. I didn’t enjoy this one quite as much as her others. Excellent writing and characters, but Edie’s over-the-top reaction to the past really didn’t sit well with me.

She and Mac were broken up that summer. She doesn’t have any right to be angry about what he did—I can understand the hurt, but to be so furious and unforgiving when she was keeping secrets of her own that same summer is hypocritical at best. Considering her anger was the main thread running through the novel, this was a pretty big problem for me. I kept thinking “Get over yourself. You did the same thing, and now you’re mad at him?”                                                    

Lauren K. Denton is a bestselling author. The One You’re With is her newest novel.

(Galley courtesy of Thomas Nelson in exchange for an honest review.)

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