Blurb

Tilly Henley was raised in a life of privilege. The daughter of prominent, wealthy New Yorkers, she wants for little. In her late twenties, she marries attorney Jim McNaughton, and the two of them happily plan to start a family. But, for the first time in her life, Tilly learns that being born into money doesn’t guarantee you get everything you want. Far from it. Unable to conceive, and now, after years of failed IVF treatments, her dream of motherhood is slipping away—and so is her marriage.

Complicating matters, Tilly and Jim also covet the $50 million trust her grandfather left for his great-grandchildren. Unfortunately, Tilly’s father, who controls the money, has his reasons for wanting the trust to go only to biological Henleys, making adoption out of the question.

With time running out, desperation turns to recklessness. What begins as whispered “what ifs” spirals into dangerous games of deception, betrayal, and unfathomable choices that could destroy everything.
When the stakes are this high, how far is too far?

Review

Too Far Standing Still is an intense and compelling psychological thriller that examines the lengths people will go when they are desperate to achieve their dream.

At the beginning of the novel, Tilly Hensley has just learnt that her final attempt at IVF has failed. This news is devastating to both Tilly and her husband, Jim McNaughton. But their natural sorrow and disappointment is quickly warped by their obsessive desire for the $50 million held in a family trust that they can only inherit if they have a biological child of their own. Both Tilly and Jim, privileged and entitled, expect that they will always get what they want – they just have to work out how. They draw Tilly’s friend Mallory Astor, unwittingly, into their increasingly dark and dangerous plans to get this money.

The novel is told in the first person by Tilly, Mallory and Jim in clearly marked sections. The use of present tense gives a sense of real time, and brings an, at times claustrophobic, immediacy to the story. Each character is well-drawn, their personality shown through their internal musings and their conversation as much as their actions. The juxtaposition of the characters’ internal thoughts against their spoken words adds depth to the characterisation. Despite, her extreme self-centredness, Tilly is written with compassion showing the psychological stresses she struggles under. Mallory, a recent widow, is a sympathetic and decent person, and provides a counterbalance to Tilly and Jim’s single-minded obsessiveness. The minor characters are all well-defined with the reader able to understand their characters and the pressures in their individual lives – even the more dubious ones, and there are a few at Tilly’s high-powered workplace.

The novel is part of Lisette Brodey’s ‘non-series’ set in New York; each book has new main characters alongside others from the earlier books playing a part. Those who have read them all would get the sense of meeting up with old friends and glimpsing their continuing lives. Too Far Standing Still can be read as a standalone novel, as I did, without any less enjoyment.

Too Far Standing Still is an absolutely compelling read. There was nothing predictable about the story and, like life’s happenstance, there are many red herrings. It is a book that is very hard to put down once you start reading. I highly recommend it.