A Stranger on the Beach

Author/Guide: Michele Campbell

Why a Booktrail?

2000s: A lovely beach home. The perfect life, right?

ISBN: 978-1250202536
Genre: Psychological

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What you need to know before your trail

Caroline Stark’s beach house was supposed to be her crowning achievement: a lavish, expensive space to showcase what she thought was her perfect family. But after a very public fight with her husband, she realizes things may not be as perfect as they seem: her husband is lying to her, the money is disappearing, and there’s a stranger on the beach outside her house.

As Caroline’s marriage and her carefully constructed lifestyle begin to collapse around her, she turns to Aidan, the stranger, for comfort…and revenge. After a brief and desperate fling that means nothing to Caroline and everything to him, Aidan’s infatuation with Caroline, her family, and her house becomes more and more destructive. But who is manipulating whom in this deadly game of obsession and control? Who will take the blame when someone ends up dead…and what is Caroline hiding?

Locations

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Travel Guide

Journey to the beaches of The Hamptons

You’re a married couple living in Manhattan with a holiday home in The Hamptons. Lucky right? Paradise right? Well, not with everyone. The couple in this book don’t appreciate what they have and want more. The wife takes more.

Paradise can quickly turn sour. (Locations are vague but the descriptions of beach houses and the power struggles that go with them are well evoked.)

“There was a stranger on the beach. He was standing in front of my house, staring at it like he was casing it to rob.
Sometimes fate sneaks up on you. But Aidan Callahan didn’t sneak up on me. He was brazen. He stood there in the middle of the sand, staring up at my brand-spanking-new beachfront house, looking like he was up to no good. I saw him clearly as I looked through the wall of windows, over the infinity-edge pool, to the ocean beyond. Yes, he was gorgeous. But I was a married woman of twenty years’standing who loved her husband, and I barely noticed that. What I noticed was that this guy looked strong. Dangerously so. And he dressed like a townie. Baggy athletic shorts, tank top, the glint of a gold chain at his neck. People like him resented people like me, and sometimes, they robbed them. There had been a string of robberies recently, of some of the big houses. The summer people thought the local cops were dragging their feet about solving them, maybe because the culprits were local boys. When I saw Aidan standing there, those robberies were the first thing that leapt to mind, and a chill went down my spine.”