Katie Gutierrez

An evocative drama about a woman who’s caught leading a double life after one husband murders the other, and the true-crime writer who becomes obsessed with telling her story—this masterful work of literary suspense marks the debut of an extraordinary new writer. A dance leads to an affair, leads to a marriage, leads to a murder . . . In 1985, Dolores “Lore” Rivera marries Andres Russo in Mexico City, even though she is already married to Fabian Rivera in Laredo, Texas, and they share twin sons. Through her career as an international banker, Lore splits her time between two countries and two men—until the truth is revealed and one husband is arrested for murdering the other. In 2017, while trawling the internet for the latest, most sensational news reports, struggling true crime writer Cassie Bowman encounters an article detailing that tragic final act. Cassie is immediately enticed by what is not explored: why would a woman who seemed to have it all lead a double life? Cassie sees an opportunity—she’ll track Lore down and capture the full picture, the choices, the deceptions that led to disaster. But the more time she spends with Lore, the more Cassie questions the facts surrounding the murder itself. Soon, her determination to uncover the truth could threaten to derail Lore’s now quiet life—and expose the many secrets both women are hiding. Told through alternating timelines, More Than You'll Ever Know is both a gripping mystery and a wrenching family drama. Presenting a window into the hearts of two very different women, it explores the many conflicting demands of marriage and motherhood, and the impossibility of ever truly knowing someone—especially those we love.

A Novel

More Than You'll Ever Know

Lindsay

thrilled in the closeness of the wolf’s breath against a home made of brick. 

Except it turns out brick walls don’t matter when the wolf lives inside.

That’s the thing when you discover another side to a person you thought you knew. No memory is safe from cynical revisiting. You search for clues with the benefit of hindsight, desperate to believe your intuition hadn’t failed you so catastrophically.

It’s easier for men to dismiss a woman than attempt to understand her—

“Mami once told me it’s impossible to get everything from one person. That at best, we get eighty percent. The other twenty, ni modo, we have to find it somewhere else.”

But women have no such magazines, nor do they have dedicated spaces to act out their desires, should it come to that. La “zona de tolerancia,” a walled compound of brothels, strip clubs, and cantinas only three miles south of the border, is nicknamed Boy’s Town for a reason. Women have only the potent force of their imagination.

For every story told out loud, there is the story we only tell ourselves. And behind that— somewhere, often out of reach— is the truth. The trick is telling them apart.

The earth rich with mothers’ secrets and daughters’ unanswered questions.

“I think there are things we carry in our bodies and in our souls that don’t need to be explained to be known by others.”

Because that’s the thing about money— once you have it, you can afford to have a moral center.

But the stages of grief are a luxury of the innocent.

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