Review: The One You’re With by Lauren K. Denton

Written in Lauren K. Denton’s signature Southern style, The One You’re With tells a story of marriage, choices, and what a good life really looks like.

High-school sweethearts Mac and Edie Swan lead a seemingly picture-perfect life in the sleepy-sweet community of Oak Hill, near Mobile, Alabama. Edie is a respected interior designer, Mac is a beloved pediatrician, and they have two great kids and a historic home on tree-lined Linden Avenue. From the outside, the Swan family is the definition of “the good life.” And life is good—mostly. Until a young woman walks into Mac’s office one day. A young woman whose very existence threatens all Mac and Edie have built and all they think they know about each other.

Nineteen years after a summer apart, with a family and established lives and careers, the past that Mac and Edie thought they left behind has come back to greet them. For the first time, constants in their lives are called into question: their roles as parents, their reputation as upstanding members of the community, and the very foundations of their marriage. As they wade through the upheaval in both their family and professional lives, they must each examine choices they made long ago and chart a new course for their future.

“In The One You're With, author Lauren K. Denton dives headfirst into a complicated, tangled situation that shakes the foundation of one family's life as they're forced to reckon with both the past and the future. Denton asks the tough questions, and with great sensitivity and intuitiveness, she unfurls an insightful, emotional story of the impact of the decisions a husband and wife in the present day made two decades earlier.  A complex, compelling, powerful story about the roads not taken, the seismic shifts that can happen in an instant, and the way that sometimes, the decisions of the past shape the future in ways we couldn't have imagined.” —Kristin Harmel, New York Times bestselling author of The Book of Lost Names and The Forest of Vanishing Stars

“Lauren Denton is a master not only of Southern fiction, but at capturing the nuance of complicated, messy relationships. This is one of those rare books that I devoured in less than 24 hours, yet didn't want to end.”  —Colleen Oakley, USA TODAYbestselling author of You Were There Too

“Reading a Lauren K. Denton book is like spending time with treasured friends. With her warmhearted Southern voice, she expertly guides readers along the achingly emotional path of a marriage in trouble in The One You’re With. This poignant story touches on how the choices we make can shape a lifetime, for better or for worse, and serves as a reminder to never take love for granted. Fix yourself a tall glass of iced tea and settle in, because you’ll have a hard time putting down this lovely, heartfelt novel.” —Heather Webber, USA TODAY bestselling author of Midnight at the Blackbird Café

Full-length Southern women’s fictionStand-alone novelBook length: 116,000 wordsIncludes discussion questions for book clubs

I received a complimentary copy of this book from the Author/Publisher and was under no obligation to post a review, positive or negative.