It’s 1973 and the Watergate scandal is on everyone’s lips. Lucy Painter, a children’s book illustrator and single mother of two, leaves New York and the married father of her children to return to Washington, DC, to the neighborhood where she grew up and the house where her father committed suicide. Lucy hopes for a fresh start, but her life is full of secrets: her children know nothing of her father’s death or the identity of their own father. As new neighbors enter their insular lives, her family’s safety and stability become threatened. Beautifully told, You Are the Love of My Life is a story of how shame leads to secrets, secrets to lies, and how lies stand in the way of human connection. ( )

This book surprised me in that I began thinking it would be a romance, but, in the end, it turned out to be more about relationships in families and neighborhoods. It seemed to have developed the theme that everyone looks great from afar, but, up close, we all have flaws. Lucy is the unmarried mother of two children, Maggie and Felix, entangled in an affair with a married man, Reuben. She returns to her hometown and the house in which she found her father's body when she was twelve. The neighborhood women meet daily for coffee and sweets and everyone thinks they know one another, but they all have their secrets. Zee is the woman who seems to be the one person who can take care of everything, but even she has a something that she is hiding. Lucy must work through her relationship with her children, especially Maggie, and Reuben, as well as a budding friendship/romance with her neighbor, August, who has secrets of his own. This book was an examination of relationships and the public and private faces that people have. I received this book as a Good Reads Early Reviewer book, and enjoyed reading it. ( )