Picture Perfect LIes

Book excerpt: If you can’t be you, who can you be? That’s the question Veronica White asks herself in the wake of her husband’s very public affair. For years, she’s been known as the prettiest member of the Bitch Brigade and Pete’s wife, and she has used social media to present her messy life as picture perfect. But those days are over. Leaving her Waterford life behind, Veronica lands in Marrakech, Morocco. There, she plans to regroup and convince everyone she’s having the time of her life without Pete. First step: post endless fun pictures on Instagram. She believes that if she can convince others she’s okay, then maybe the pain will cease. Enter Oz, an engaging young man who is traveling the world and chasing the endless summer. He regals Veronica with stories of his adventures, and intrigued, she throws caution to the wind and joins him on a trip to the Sahara Desert. Soon, Veronica finds herself following Oz to Croatia and France, where, with Oz’s prompting and guidance, she tries reinventing herself. As she grows closer to Oz, Veronica realizes she may not be the only one who’s playing a manipulation game, and that sometimes what we want to see gets in the way of reality.