“I don’t really know. Actually, that’s what I’ve been sitting here thinking about. She is my wife, my most successful client. I’ve lived with her for sixteen years. Her whole life, as far as I know it—” He pointed to the shelves in front of them. “That’s it. Right there. It’s what we talked about. It’s what we planned about. It’s what we ate, slept, breathed. For the most part, anyway.” He turned and met Eileen’s eyes. “I have no idea if she made up with the one person on the planet I would have said was her mortal enemy. But now that I think about it, I’m not sure that how they felt about each other would really have anything to do with Donna’s reviews. Was she mad at Clare way back? Absolutely. But did Donna hold that grudge all these years and use her literary platform to take a public dig at Clare’s work every so often? I don’t think so. I think Donna really did hate all this.” He swept his hand across the span of shelves in front of them. “But having read her response to this book”—he nodded at A Perfect Life in Eileen’s hand—“it makes me believe that her criticism was always her honest opinion about the work, not Clare.”

“And this book is really so different from Clare’s others?”

“Completely. From the premise to the point of view, thematic elements, pacing, character development…it’s just an altogether different sort of book from her others. There are elements to Clare’s other works that her fans have come to love and expect, their commercial appeal, heroes and heroines to root for, tears that lead to happy endings. These are the reasons Clare topped the Forbes highest-earning author charts for the last six years. People all over the world loved to escape into her worlds, safe in the knowledge that they would emerge from the other side feeling like they had just lived a life that is more exciting, more colorful, more emotionally terrifying and uplifting than anything they ever find between their nine-to-five and doing the dishes after dinner.”

Eileen smiled and nodded. “I remember that much about them. Back when I used to read them, they were a great escape.”

Simon nodded. “But this?” He put his finger on the book. “Her typical fans are mostly hating it, or feeling ambivalent at best. Too depressing. Too real. Too literary.” He scoffed. “So she pleased the Donna Mehans of the world and alienated all her bread and butter.”

Eileen opened the book to the first page of the first chapter. “Why do you think she wrote it?” she asked him.