Between You and Us: A Novel

When Leona steps into Zarletti's Ristorante, she unexpectedly steps into another life--the one that could have been hers. And now she must choose between two paths: one with the love of her life and one with the daughter she's always longed for. Three lives. Two outcomes. One impossible choice. Leona hopes dinner with her husband will mean enjoying a rare upscale meal and hopefully begin learning how to live again. But when she crosses the threshold of the ridiculously romantic restaurant, she quickly realizes she doesn’t belong. It’s not only her thrifted dress screaming "I clip coupons" or the menu printed in Italian, it’s all the clues pointing to the fact she’s in a different version of her life—the one where she still accepted David Warlon’s marriage proposal, but where they choose to live by his family’s rules and all the expectations that came with it. Instead of struggling to pay rent, she lives in a lavish home with working faucets. She’s no longer teaching English to high schoolers, but attending brunch with a bunch of high society busybodies (a.k.a. her mother-in-law). Leona would put more effort into figuring out how to get home, but there’s one thing stealing all her attention: a precious little girl with her green eyes and David’s curly hair. In this trajectory, her daughter Vera lived. Now, Leona must weigh the bitter and sweet of each world, choosing between the chance to be with Vera under the impossible expectations of the Warlon family, or the life swallowed by grief with the man she loves worlds away.