Synopses & Reviews
From the bestselling author of
The Comfort of Lies, an engrossing look at the darker side of a marriage—and at how an ordinary family responds to an extraordinary crisis.
Maddy is a social worker trying to balance her career and three children. Years ago, she fell in love with Ben, a public defender, drawn to his fiery passion, but now he’s lashing out at her during his periodic verbal furies. She vacillates between tiptoeing around him and asserting herself for the sake of their kids—which works to keep a fragile peace—until the rainy day when they’re together in the car and Ben’s volatile temper gets the best of him, leaving Maddy in the hospital fighting for her life.
Randy Susan Meyers takes us inside the hearts and minds of her characters, alternating among the perspectives of Maddy, Ben, and their fourteen-year-old daughter. Accidents of Marriage is a provocative and stunning novel that will resonate deeply with women from all walks of life, ultimately revealing the challenges of family, faith, and forgiveness.
Review
"I read Accidents of Marriage in one day. Like Meyers' first two novels, this one—about a family paying a high price for rage and trying to reknit itself in the aftermath of the unthinkable—is compulsive reading. It's amazing how warm Meyers' writing is even as her stories grip you by the hand and don't let go."
Review
"The characters crackle with both intelligence and wit. Meyers’ women resonate as strong, complicated and conflicted, and the writing flows effortlessly in this sweet yet sassy novel about love, women and motherhood."
Review
"Randy Susan Meyers’s second novel is sharp and biting, and sometimes wickedly funny...but it has a lot of heart, too. Meyers writes beautifully about a formerly good marriage — the simple joys of stability, the pleasures of veteran intimacy — and deftly dissects just how ugly things can get after infidelity. The battles these women fight take place on a small stage, yet they’re anything but trivial: saving a marriage, making a meaningful career, learning to parent. In the end, thanks to Meyers’s astute, sympathetic observation, we want these women to win."
Review
"Meyers has crafted an absorbing and layered drama that explores the complexities of infidelity, forgiveness, and family.”
Review
"Meyers enriches her character development with class and career difficulties, as well as settings involving far differing neighborhoods of Boston. Readers who enjoyed The Memory Keepers Daughter or Jeanette Halen's Matter of Chance, will feel right at home in the anxious pages of Meyer’s captivating novel."
Review
"Meyers creates three distinct voices, with each woman speaking from a place of pain and strength while navigating complicated emotions in the aftermath of a life-changing event. The alternating perspectives maintain the intensity of the emotions and relationships, leading to the inevitable decision of which is more powerful: the harm caused by dishonesty, or the strength of forgiveness and love."
Review
“Meyers delves into the layered facets of motherhood and how children not only shape the fate of their parents, but also manage to sometimes tinker with their emotional balance and sense of judgment."
Review
“Plunging us into the different minds and hearts of these characters, Meyers unearths how their relationships to Savannah are affected in multiple ways. But the author makes every perspective engaging. She conveys their inner and outer lives, and the varying ways they connect with each other and with Savannah, whose head is turned in three directions.”
Review
“Meyers’ carefully told story is a satisfying examination of the imperfect paths we all walk.”
Review
"Meyers teases out the well-orchestrated plot in a frank, lean narrative written in the alternating voices of the three women...creat[ing] psychologically complex protagonists by imbuing them with contradictions...it's hard to stop turning the pages of this book; much to her credit, Meyers keep us guessing untill the end."
Review
“With The Comfort of Lies, Meyers’ complex characters feel familiar yet flawed, and this sharply-woven tale demonstrates her uncanny ability to explore and illuminate the nuances of life’s most thorny dilemmas.”
Review
"I devoured this big-hearted story of three women whose lives collide years after a baby is put up for adoption. Meyers' wit and wisdom shine through, even when her characters are at their most sorrowful and confused. She writes with insight and compassion, about marriage, forgiveness, work, family and the true meaning of motherhood."
Review
"The intertwining and heart-wrenching stories of how three women come to terms with the decisions they’ve made and those yet to make will touch you and stay with you long after you’ve turned the last page. Beautifully written. Strong characters. The Comfort of Lies is a powerful, poignant and riveting novel."
Review
“I devoured this book. Randy Susan Meyers writes with great empathy and insight about three distinct women and the unlikely intersection of their lives. The story will pull you into the uncomfortable space where truths are confronted, and lead you to the other side where the world looks brighter. A sensitive exploration of why we take refuge in the comfort of lies, and what happens when we dare to release ourselves from their power.”
Review
"I spent many blissful, addicted hours with The Comfort of Lies, totally hooked on needing to know what happened next in the braided stories of Tia, Caroline, and Juliette. Meyers has an uncanny ability to get inside women whose circumstances dramatically divide them and show how at heart, we're all the same. Another unforgettable Meyers smash-hit."
Review
"A fast-paced multi-narrator story that gets to the heart of the trade-offs of motherhood. You will be drawn in by these characters because of the mystery at the novel's center and relate to the ways in which they each create their own loneliness while surrounded by others."
Review
"The Comfort of Lies explores a complex and beautiful web of relationships between three very different women whose lives intersect in startling and heartrending ways. This is my favorite kind of read: a page-turner soaked in empathy with an elegant understanding of the human heart. Randy Susan Meyers is a first rate talent."
Review
“Insightful, unsettling, and ultimately hopeful, The Comfort of Lies is a compelling, multilayered story. Randy Susan Meyers skillfully exposes the insecurities and strengths of three women who find their lives forever reshaped in the far-reaching wake of a little girl’s adoption.”
Review
“A novel about love, that explores its meaning with wise restlessness and no easy answers. Profound, clear-sighted and more than a bit slyly funny, this is a book to read, to reread and to share.”
Review
"Randy Susan Meyers' thoughtful, gripping new novel explores the unlikely intersection of three women in crisis. The result is a haunting exploration of the secrets we keep - and how, in the aftermath of their detonation, shattered lives can be mended. Meyers is a major talent, and her writing is a gift to readers everywhere."
Review
"A tender, yet sharp portrayal of the messy way three women stumble into each others’ worlds, Meyers explores the lies we tell each other, and maybe more importantly, the ones we tell ourselves. A whip-smart observation of the definition of family and ultimately, what it means to love."
Review
"Randy Susan Meyers' must-read new novel, The Comfort of Lies, resonates with vibrations of love in forms as varied as a symphony: the discordant notes of jealousy, the sweet harmony of soulmates connecting, the high notes of sacrifice and forgiveness—all underscored by the sweeping passion of mother love that is embedded in its heart's core."
Review
"A roller-coaster of a ride through the world of infidelity, unwed motherhood, and adoption. Randy Susan Meyers’ The Comfort of Lies deftly explores the importance of trust, and the power of love."
Review
"With warmth, you-are-there immediacy and impressive insight, Randy Susan Meyers explores both the destructive nature of lies and the redeeming power of hard truths. Every page in this multilayered novel of separate yet entangled lives not only illustrates the accommodations we make for love but also illuminates what it means to be a family. This book is an enormous accomplishment!"
Review
"This meaningful novel is, at its heart, a multi-faceted love story. It's about how people do the wrong things for the right reasons and vice versa. This is the story of the ways that families-- bonded by blood and by choice-- can save or slay us. With a vision that is generous, yet unsentimental, The Comfort Of Lies is a testimony to the healing power of the truth."
Review
"Randy Susan Meyers plumbs the depth and intricacy of human entanglements, exploring them with a clear eye and compassion for each of her insightfully rendered characters. The Comfort of Lies is a riveting page-turner, conjuring the ways in which we compete with, lay claim to and ultimately love one another.”
Review
"A bold and poignant look into the complicated, slippery world of what constitutes emotional abuse, Accidents of Marriage explores what happens when tragic circumstance forces one family to reexamine the dysfunctional dynamics that have long-defined them. Meyers deftly pulled me in to this story from the first page, tying me to its tender and fearless heartbeat, and didn't let me go until the extremely satisfying end."
Review
"Randy Susan Meyers is a genius of the human heart, and Accidents of Marriage is a profound education on the complexities of love, imperfection, damage, and responsibility. You'll feel as though a magically insightful friend is sharing the behind-the-scenes secrets of a family you may well know. She tells it like it is. No sugar-coating here, only truth in all its compelling beauty and might."
Review
"An incredibly accomplished and satisfying read, with an important message."
Review
"With the heart of a novelist and the tenacity of an investigative journalist, Meyers flawlessly depicts the evolution and consequences of emotional abuse. A master of perspective with an uncanny understanding of human nature, she has managed to make us empathize with every member of this damaged family. This is an important story, one I’ll be thinking about for a long time."
Review
"Maddy and Ben have a complicated marriage. He’s got anger issues; she is messy and forgetful. One fateful morning these character traits clash – with devastating consequences. In this beautifully written novel, Randy Susan Meyers traces how the repercussions of a car accident expose fissures and long-held resentments from the past that force these characters to question everything. This is a wise and penetrating book.”
Review
"Every marriage has its secret deals and compromises. In Accidents of Marriage, Randy Susan Meyers explores the vast complexity of this bond and lays out how passion, allegiance and love can go terribly wrong. She gives us characters we root for, even when they’re at odds, and she asks the questions:What is forgivable? When does a marriage become too broken to fix? With wisdom, humor and great compassion, Meyers answers in a story you won’t soon forget."
Review
"The intertwined traumas of emotional abuse and brain injury careen through every family member in this disturbing and deeply insightful story. Meyers captures the necessity and complexity of excavating the truth as the foundation of life moving forward."
Review
"Many books are an absolute pleasure to read, but slip straight from your mind. Accidents of Marriage is one of those rare novels that is both unputdownable and unforgettable. I just loved it, and I'll now read everything Randy Susan Meyers writes."
Review
"Beautifully written, poignant and thought-provoking, this novel refuses to succumb to stereotypical reader expectations, making it even more memorable."
Review
“Meyers puts a Boston family overwhelmed by a tragic accident under the literary microscope. Meyers, who has a background working with victims of domestic violence, examines the effects anger and violence can have on family members, as well as the courage that can be born from a new perspective and the lack of happily-ever-after in these real-life situations. The characters labor under intense pressure, and some crack while others rise to the challenge, giving Meyers’ tale both realism and a bittersweet quality that, in the hands of a lesser writer, could have ended up simply maudlin and contrived. Beautifully written, poignant and thought-provoking, this novel refuses to succumb to stereotypical reader expectations, making it even more memorable.”
Review
"Sensitively written."
Review
"Meyers is quickly taking her place among the ranks of women’s fiction authors who write big-issue novels that explore the inner lives of women in crisis without descending into melodrama or cliché. Readers who enjoy Barbara Delinsky, Amy Hatvany, and Jodi Picoult will want to add Meyers to their to-read list."
Review
"A deft exploration of the borders of abuse and the aftermath of tragedy, the triumphs and disappointments of recovery, and the possibilities of faith and forgiveness."
Review
“Meyers’ novel explores how destructive emotional abuse by itself can be. . . [and] deftly deploys a large cast of major and minor characters in telling this complex story. Her painstaking description of both emotional abuse and brain injury are impressive. Accidents of Marriage isn’t for anyone who insists on happy endings, but it rewards readers in deeply satisfying ways. A complex, captivating tale.”
Review
"Meyers writes compellingly; Maddy’s recovery is detailed and wrenching, as are vivid portraits of the children’s reactions to their family’s turmoil."
Review
"This novel's unsparing look at emotional abuse and its devastating consequences gives it gravity and bite, while a glimpse into a physically damaged mind both surprises and fascinates."
About the Author
Randy Susan Meyers is the bestselling author of The Comfort of Lies and The Murderer’s Daughters and a finalist for the Massachusetts Book Award. Her writing is informed by her work with batterers and victims of domestic violence, as well her experience with youth impacted by street violence. She lives with her husband in Boston, where she teaches writing seminars at the Grub Street Writers’ Center.