(

-- ask me, Annie. Ask me what's the worst thing I've done. Ask,

goddammit. Because then you'll know I'll never go beyond last night.

Tonight, Annie is driving alone from North Sea to Montauk and back again,

as she has every night since her husband, Mason, challenged what she

believed about herself and about their marriage. Eating junk food and

listening to talk radio, Annie tries to shut out her rage, her pain, but

Mason's voice persists within her, as urgent as the voices of the anonymous

callers who confess their misery to the radio psychologists.

Once again, Ursula Hegi writes along that border where bliss and sorrow

meet. Sensuous, funny, and mysterious, her new novel takes us into an

exuberant and troubled friendship. Since early childhood, Annie, Jake, and

Mason have had a special bond. When Annie's parents die on the same night

that she and Mason are married, the three friends decide to raise Annie's

newborn sister, Opal, together.

Annie struggles to be both a sister and a mother to Opal, a wife to Mason,

and a friend to Jake. Not surprisingly, their relationships, already

entangled, grow dangerous, too close, on the line. One fateful night the

three friends miss the moment when they could still turn back, and they

goad each other to step across the line, with shocking, unforeseen

consequences.

Set on the East End of Long Island, The Worst Thing I've Done is an

incandescent story of love, friendship, and marriage; of joy and betrayal;

of an artist's struggle to reconnect with her work; and of how we can

choose our mothers, our families. Beautifully written and brilliantly

vivid, it explores the resilience in the protagonists' lives, and their

courage to move forward despite an uncertain future.

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