Shaker Heights is the ideal suburb for the upper class with their well manicured lawns and their picture perfect families that inhabits the homes. The Richardsons are one such family. Elena Richardson grew up in Shaker Heights and had never imagined living anywhere else. Her along with her husband and four teenage children lived the perfect life, or so it seemed.

When Mia Warren and her daughter, Pearl rents an apartment from the Richardsons things begin to happen. Mia is an artist that lives a nomadic lifestyle moving her and Pearl from city to city after each project is completed. Elena Richardson finds this intriguing and unnerving to her more sensible ideas of how families should behave.

When a custody battle abrupt between Mia’s friend and Elena’s friend, the two women are at odds. Elena starts digging into Mia’s past and is hell bent on starting trouble.

Pearl thought her dream of living a normal life and staying in one place had come true when they moved to Shaker Heights. She befriend the Richardson children and was instantly drawn to their world. They seemed so sure of themselves and confident something that she never possessed.

This book had a lot of twists and turns, but was a rather slow read. Lots of description on the town and how Shaker Height had become the ideal place to live, but was left feeling that I wanted to know more about some of the characters. Through the course of the book my initial opinion about Mia changed. Overall, it was an interesting story about how you can’t really know what goes on in someone’s home no matter how picture perfect it may seem from the outside.