Women Like Us
Women Like Us is the second book in Katia Lief’s Invisible Woman series, following Joni Ackerman after the events of the first book. Five years have passed since Joni killed her husband by putting antifreeze in his drink, and five years since she got away with it. Now she runs Sunny Day Productions with her daughter Chris and her best friend Val, and her life looks far more content than it probably should. Then Joni’s estranged brother Marc appears after twenty years of not being around. Joni wants to believe he has changed, but Val knows the kind of man he used to be, so she warns her not to trust him. When Marc betrays that trust, Joni has to face a very uncomfortable question about herself and her family.
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Katia Lief’s Women Like Us is a sharply-rendered literary thriller that examines the complexities and responsibilities of female friendship—what brings women together, and what drives them apart.
Joni Ackerman was tired of being invisible.
It’s been five years since Joni Ackerman tipped the antifreeze into her husband’s cocktail. Five years since he was found dead on the stairs. Five years since she got away with murder. At first, Joni feared the consequences of her transgression, but she’s learned to embrace the power of recklessness in a way she would have hated to see in anyone else. It was that recklessness, after all, that took her to this rewarding new life.
Joni now runs Sunny Day Productions alongside her daughter, Chris, and her best friend, Val. All is well in life and work until, one day, their balance is rocked when an unexpected, and unwelcome, visitor appears.
When Joni’s brother, Marc, resurfaces after a twenty-year estrangement, Joni braces for the sibling she knew—a cruel, vindictive conman who deftly switched between personas. But this Marc on her doorstep is different. He’s older, softer. And he seems to have overcome the self-inflicted traumas of his past.
But Val isn’t fooled. She knows exactly what sort of man Marc is, and she warns Joni to keep her guard up. When Mark inevitably betrays Joni’s trust, Joni is forced to look inward. As dark thoughts, and darker compulsions, take form, Joni can’t help but wonder: ‘Is psychopathy a family trait?’
Part of the Invisible Woman series – see all Katia Lief books on the Katia Lief Books in Order page.
