The Lifeguards

November 1, 2021

The lifeguards in Ward's latest are the three teenage sons of close friends Whitney, Annette, and Liza, starting cool summer jobs in their well-to-do neighborhood in Austin, TX. Or are the lifeguards the mothers themselves, different in background but alike in their eagle-eyed, talons-out protectiveness of their children? They're so protective that when the boys come home one night and reveal a shattering secret, the women find their friendship imploding as they decide what to do. Following The Jetsetters, a Reese's Book Club X Hello Sunshine Pick.

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February 7, 2022
Ward (The Jetsetters) delivers an arresting story of three Austin, Tex., mothers whose teenage sons find a dead woman on the first night of summer. Liza Bailey, single mom to Charlie, has found safety in the “rich mom circle” even though she’s scraping by to live in wealthy Barton Hills as she contends with her comparatively more humble origins and Charlie searches for his father. Annette Fontenot, who was born in Mexico and educated at UT Austin, works toward passing her citizenship test as she attempts to placate her white husband’s masculine expectations of their son, Robert, and find some genuine happiness. Whitney Brownson appears to have the perfect life with beautiful twins, Xavier and Roma, and a thriving real estate business, but she, too, has cracks in her own foundation. Something seems off about the boys’ story of finding the body, and as the police investigate and the moms lawyer up, each woman must decide between friendship and family. Ward does a good job exploring her characters and keeping the reader guessing, though some of the twists and coincidences border on forced. Still, like a cool lake on a hot day, this story hits the spot. Agent: Michelle Tessler, Tessler Literary.

March 15, 2022
For struggling single mom Liza, high-powered real estate agent Whitney, and new American citizen and wife to an oil heir Annette, their 15-year-old sons are the center of their perfect worlds, best friends like their moms are best friends. So when Charlie, Xavier, and Bobcat come back from the green belt claiming they found a woman's body, they close ranks to protect their own. Austin Police detective Salvatore Revello, a recent widower with two kids of his own, is under pressure to solve the case. The green belt is home to Austin's popular swimming holes, though some areas are known more for drug deals and shady paths that lead nowhere. As the dead woman's identity is uncovered, so is a surprising connection she has to one of the boys. Ward (The Jetsetters, 2020) balances a police procedural with domestic suspense, and by alternating narrators among the women, their sons, and Salvatore, she keeps the focus on the emotional toll the crime takes on everyone, while a chorus of Austin mommies add humorous commentary. Touching on issues like class, gentrification, and opioid abuse, The Lifeguards is a rich piece of relationship fiction and a summer thriller in one.

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When three boys discover a corpse on the bike trail, the warm alliance between their moms begins to fracture. Ward's latest showcases three women from the upscale Austin, Texas, suburb of Barton Hills. There's Whitney, a real estate mogul who, along with her British husband, sells underground bunkers to billionaire tech bros who are thinking ahead to climate apocalypse. There's Liza, a struggling single mom and a food writer who is barely making rent with odd jobs and dog walking. She's desperately clinging to her membership in the rich mom's club, praying no one finds out how broke she is or asks her anything at all about her past. And there's Annette, a basketball superstar from Laredo turned reluctant trophy wife to the obnoxious heir to a West Texas oil fortune. Over the years of raising their sons together, these women have forged what they believe to be an unbreakable friendship, and as the book opens, they have sent the boys off together to their summer jobs as lifeguards at Barton Springs, an iconic Austin swimming hole. When the trio comes home panicky and panting, reporting that they found a dead woman's body on the greenbelt, their moms are 100% sure the boys didn't know her and had nothing to do with it. That doesn't last long. Ward does a great job of skewering the particular bougie lifestyles and Austin milieux she evokes. She smoothly manages a large cast of characters with a constantly shifting point of view; the disconnect between the kids' reality and the moms' na�ve understanding is spot-on. Comic relief is provided by an ongoing text conversation among the Barton Hills Mamas--chardonnayismyjam, teslaluvr, marykaymom, and the rest--for whom gossip knows no limits of decency or taste. But after all the suspense and ticking of the clock, the ending is a head-scratcher. Plausibility aside, what even happened in the final scene? And to the guilty party? The happy ending is nice but, in this case, feels incomplete. A knowing, clever, and entertaining visit to the sinister underside of motherhood, good friends, and sunny days.

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