The Lifeguards is an intense and shocking story about the different struggles within families, for the children and their parents. It’s a story about the loss of innocence and rites of passages intertwined with an incredibly fast-paced murder mystery with a jaw-dropping ending!
Liza, Annette and Whitney are three mothers who have been best friends for years. They would do anything for their own children and each other’s families. They live in an upscale Texas neighborhood. Although the women consider each other best friends, Liza and Annette would do anything for Whitney’s approval and attention.
Liza is a single mother of a fifteen-year-old son named Charlie. When she fled her home life after finding herself pregnant, she ended up here. Whitney was her first friend and has since helped Liza in so many ways. But Liza has secrets and tries to fit in with the other women. Although she pretends to have it all, she struggles to make ends meet. Charlie is her life. She is overprotective of him and although she knows this, she can’t stop it from happening. Charlie only wants an answer to a simple question. Who is my father?
Annette is married to Louis and has a son nicknamed Bobcat. Louis feels superior to his wife and sometimes expects the same from his son. He is the man of the house and makes no bones about that fact. Annette worries how Bobcat will turn out with Louis as his father. She misses her family but enjoys the lifestyle Louis is able to give her, something she did not have growing up. In the meantime, Bobcat is trying to find his way in life navigating his parents, friends and puberty.
Whitney is a famous and established real estate agent whose family hurts for nothing. She and her husband Jules have different styles of parenting. She parents…Jules doesn’t. They have twins. Xavier is very conscientious and considerate, and he tries to please everybody. Roma is a bad seed. She tortures her brother and has since they were young. She is spoiled and her behavior is overlooked by her parents. Although recently, her actions seem to be getting worse. Xavier is scared of Roma and fears she will kill him.
The three boys have been best friends since childhood and this summer they have become Lifeguards. One night the boys come home late, and they tell their mothers that they found a woman’s body on the greenbelt she is dead. They swear they don’t know what happened to her, but their actions say otherwise. No matter how hard the mothers try, the boys refuse to give the full truth, so they think. What are they hiding?
As the investigation begins it at first seems to be ruled a drug overdose, but one of the boys’ shin guards is found at the site of the body as well as a picture of the three friends. The women begin to panic, but the boys still insist they know nothing.
Then one of them is arrested.
The chapters switch back and forth from the day of the incident to the present day. We begin to see what happened before the body was found and after the body was discovered and what the police learn during the investigation.
As the boys lies begin to unravel, their parents, especially their mothers go into protection mode. The mother’s will not believe their child could do such a thing. All they want to do is safeguard their families. But the children are not the only ones who are keeping secrets and by the end of the investigation everyone will be stunned at its conclusion.
A mother’s love has no limits…
Thank you #NetGalley #BallentineBooks #AmandaEyreWard #TheLifeguards for the advanced copy.
Lisa's Cubby 