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Title details for The Lifeguards by Amanda Eyre Ward - Available

The Lifeguards

A Novel

by Amanda Eyre Ward
Hillary Huber
Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
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1 of 1 copy available
“A book that is at once riveting and relevant as it unpeels the various meanings of motherhood, family, and loyalty. I tore through it.”—Miranda Cowley Heller, author of The Paper Palace
 
The bonds between three picture-perfect—but viciously protective—mothers and their close-knit sons are tested during one unforgettable summer in a gripping novel from the New York Times bestselling author of The Jetsetters.
Austin’s Zilker Park neighborhood is a wonderland of greenbelt trails, live music, and moms who drink a few too many margaritas. Whitney, Annette, and Liza have grown thick as thieves as they have raised their children together for fifteen years, believing that they can shelter them their children from an increasingly dangerous world. Their friendship is unbreakable—as safe as the neighborhood where they've raised their sweet little boys.
Or so they think. 
One night, the three women have been enjoying happy hour when their boys, lifeguards for the summer, come back on bicycles from a late-night dip in their favorite swimming hole. The boys share a secret—news that will shatter the perfect world their mothers have so painstakingly created.  
 
Combining three mothers’ points of view in a powerful narrative tale with commentary from entertaining neighborhood listservs, secret text messages, and police reports, The Lifeguards is both a story about the secrets we tell to protect the ones we love and a riveting novel of suspense filled with half-truths and betrayals, fierce love and complicated friendships, and the loss of innocence on one hot summer night.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    April 5, 2022

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9780593506783
      • File size: 250516 KB
      • Duration: 08:41:54

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • Publisher's Weekly

      February 7, 2022
      Ward (The Jetsetters) delivers an arresting story of three Austin, Tex., mothers whose teenage sons find a dead woman on the first night of summer. Liza Bailey, single mom to Charlie, has found safety in the “rich mom circle” even though she’s scraping by to live in wealthy Barton Hills as she contends with her comparatively more humble origins and Charlie searches for his father. Annette Fontenot, who was born in Mexico and educated at UT Austin, works toward passing her citizenship test as she attempts to placate her white husband’s masculine expectations of their son, Robert, and find some genuine happiness. Whitney Brownson appears to have the perfect life with beautiful twins, Xavier and Roma, and a thriving real estate business, but she, too, has cracks in her own foundation. Something seems off about the boys’ story of finding the body, and as the police investigate and the moms lawyer up, each woman must decide between friendship and family. Ward does a good job exploring her characters and keeping the reader guessing, though some of the twists and coincidences border on forced. Still, like a cool lake on a hot day, this story hits the spot. Agent: Michelle Tessler, Tessler Literary.

    • Library Journal

      June 1, 2022

      The Zilker Park neighborhood of Austin, TX, is the place to live and raise kids, where longtime friends Whitney, Annette, and Liza have sons of the same age who attend school together and work as lifeguards at the local pool. The mothers spend many hours discussing their children, their neighborhood, their everything else, while sipping mixed tequila drinks and hoping they don't drink too much and accidentally reveal too much about themselves. But one evening their lifeguard sons interrupt their tequila fest with shocking news: they found the body of a dead woman. Each mother goes into protector mode and the dynamic of their friendship changes forever. The lifeguards themselves have a small voice in this story and are clueless, rudderless, and nearly as shallow as their parents. The audiobook's various narrators do a good job of keeping the voices distinct. VERDICT Suggest Ward's eighth novel (following The Jetsetters) in audio only to her fans.--Laura Brosie

      Copyright 2022 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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