The Mistake I Made

You’d think that with single mom Roz Toovey’s furniture already repossessed, her anxious nine-year-old son stealing money at school, and eviction looming, her situation couldn’t get much worse—but it decidedly does in this disappointing downer from CWA Gold Dagger Award–finalist Daly (Keep Your Friends Close). Despite her labors as a physiotherapist in England’s Lake District, Roz can’t see a way out from under the ever-compounding debt racked up by her feckless estranged husband. That is, until wealthy married patient Scott Elias makes her a tantalizingly lucrative and indecent proposal. Things start to get really complicated when, first, Roz’s boss, Wayne, stumbles into the arrangement; she then meets an eligible man she likes—who happens to be Scott’s brother-in-law. Though the plot starts to pick up speed about halfway through, which is around the time Wayne goes missing, by then there’s been enough of Roz’s largely dreary daily life that some readers may decide not to proceed further. Agent: Jane Gregory, Gregory & Company (U.K.). (Sept.)