It All Comes Down to This: A Novel

by Therese Anne Fowler

Overview

A tale of secrets, forgiveness, and the unbreakable bonds of sisterhood — from the New York Times bestselling author of A Well-Behaved Woman.

"A true page-turner." —Ann Napolitano, New York Times bestselling author of Hello Beautiful

"A smart and lively novel." —Jess Walter, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Beautiful Ruins

"Austenesque...this goes down as easily as an Aperol spritz." —Publishers Weekly

Meet the Geller sisters: Beck, Claire, and Sophie, a trio of strong-minded women whose pragmatic mother, Marti, will be dying soon.

Beck, a freelance journalist, suspects her husband is hiding something. Claire, an accomplished pediatric cardiologist, nurses an unrequited love that's slowly destroying her. And Sophie's Instagram-perfect life is really a cash-strapped house of cards on the verge of collapse.

Marti's will surprises them with its provision that the family's summer cottage in Maine must be sold, the proceeds split equally between the sisters. While there's a ready buyer in C.J. Reynolds, he's an ex-con with a complicated past and a tangled history with one of the women.

In It All Comes Down to This, acclaimed author Therese Anne Fowler delivers a stylish, insightful take on the dysfunctional family dramedy. As the Geller sisters navigate choices and consequences, mistakes and misapprehensions, obligations and desires, they must come to terms with the ways their lives have turned out differently than expected — and the secrets they've been keeping from each other and themselves.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250278067
Publisher:	St. Martin's Publishing Group
Publication date:	06/07/2022
Sold by:	Macmillan
Format:	eBook
Pages:	320
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

THERESE ANNE FOWLER is the New York Times bestselling author of A Good Neighborhood, A Well-Behaved Woman, and Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald. Raised in the Midwest, she migrated to North Carolina in 1995. She holds a B.A. in sociology/cultural anthropology and an MFA in creative writing from North Carolina State University.

Editorial Reviews

"Sparkling...All you could want in a beach read: three sisters with secrets; a summer house in Maine to be sold off (or not); a sexy stranger from out of town who’s looking to buy; and no problem that can’t be satisfyingly resolved before the story ends." —Library Journal (starred review)

"Can you say perfect porch read?" —CNN.com

"Fowler has done it again." —GMA.com

"A tightly coiled family saga…Fowler expertly peels back the layers of each character in this page-turner, making for a highly entertaining summer read." —Booklist

"Austenesque...this goes down as easily as an Aperol spritz." —Publishers Weekly

"A smart and lively novel, one that had me turning its pages faster and faster, wondering if this indelible family could really untangle the deep lies that reveal an even deeper truth." —Jess Walter, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Beautiful Ruins

"It All Comes Down to This answered a need I didn’t even know I had—to read a big-hearted novel about middle-aged women reckoning with their own heavy secrets, and each other. This novel is entertaining, in the best sense of the word, and a true page-turner." —Ann Napolitano, New York Times bestselling author of Hello Beautiful

"Fowler writes like a contemporary Edith Wharton, peeling back layers of class and custom to reveal the mysteries of love, longing, and fate. It All Comes Down to This is a stunning tale of people struggling to wring the most from their lives while facing the uncertainty of what their lives should be." —Wiley Cash, New York Times bestselling author of When Ghosts Come Home

"A compulsively readable, thoroughly enjoyable tale of three sisters, their histories, their problems, and their unraveling secrets. Contemporary, but with a delightfully Austenish tone, I read it in a single gulp." —Karen Joy Fowler, New York Times bestselling author of We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves

"Fowler sure is fond of setting off big surprise-bombs in her novels—revelations that would have most families looking for a rug to sweep everything under. But you haven’t met the Geller sisters. Three women whose chosen way to deal with sibling betrayals, sub-optimal husbands, artistic and financial failure, perverse directives from their mother’s will, and last-gasp chances for love is to plow right through the middle, the hard way. What it comes down to is this: Fowler’s insight into the way we re-open ourselves for love, time and again, speaks stirringly to the heart." —Wilton Barnhardt, New York Times bestselling author of Lookaway, Lookaway

From the Publisher

Narrator Barrie Kreinik enlivens a rather flat, predictable story about three sisters whose lives are turned upside down by the death of their mother. Listeners spend hours learning about the women’s material and sexual desires, their career and marital insecurities, their paltry anxieties, and, of course, their relationships with each other. There are some memorable portrayals in this lengthy production. The soft, gentle voice of the masseuse in Duluth; the raspy timbre and Down East accent of grande dame Deirdre, who lives on Mount Desert Island, Maine; and the South Carolina drawl of ex-con and heartthrob C.J. Reynolds invigorate this production. Some listeners will feel they are enjoying a heartwarming family drama. Others may find the characters lackluster despite a more than competent rendering. D.L.G. © AudioFile 2022, Portland, Maine

AUGUST 2022 - AudioFile

2022-03-10
Love, lies, and long-buried secrets surface as a favored family summer home in Maine is put up for sale.

The title is something of a giveaway in Fowler’s latest, a story of problems endured over many years, sometimes at significant personal cost, but, once aired and shared, reaching self-evident solutions. Sisters Beck, Claire, and Sophie Geller, with their contrasting careers and lifestyles, must come together after the loss of their mother, Marti, whose will requires them to sell the beloved summer cottage they have inherited, a remote house on Mount Desert Island. Sophie, who works in Manhattan’s art world but whose life has suddenly upended, needs the money the sale would bring. Claire, a doctor whose marriage has failed, could use the cash, too, but welcomes the distraction from unrequited love that the house brings. Beck, a journalist married to book editor Paul, wants to keep the house as a place in which to write the novel she’s longed to complete. Doing so would also liberate her from her kind but sexless marriage. Paul, meanwhile, has a secret—he yearns for Claire, and Claire (unbeknownst to Paul) yearns back. Marti kept secrets, too, and Beck has lied to Paul, both for financial and sexual reasons. She’s recently spent an amazing night with C.J. Reynolds, a figure from her past who has his own problematic backstory. Backstories indeed fill many pages in this exposition-heavy, distinctly soapy story, which devotes most of its attention to elaborating the problems set up to be unraveled. Fowler presents the family members in great detail; less so in the case of the perfunctory C.J., though he too will reach a happy resolution. So, this is what it all comes down to—a tying up of much-dangled loose ends.

Romantic and other dilemmas reach flagged-up conclusions in a novel whose destination is gratification.

Kirkus Reviews