From the bestselling author of The Cure for Modern Life and Once Upon a Day comes a riveting novel of suspense about a literature professor whose carefully constructed life is shattered after the death of her twin brother and the unraveling of the secret world they shared. On a March afternoon, while Lila Cole is working in her quiet office, her twin brother Billy points an unloaded rifle out of a hotel window across from an elementary school, closing down a city block. “Suicide by police” was obviously Billy’s intended result, but the aftermath of his death brings shock after shock for Lila when she discovers that her twin— the person she thought she was closer to than anyone in the world—was not only estranged from his wife, but also charged with endangering the life of his middle child and namesake, eightyear- old William. Lila’s quest for answers puts her job, her marriage, and even her sanity at risk as she begins to learn the horrible truth about her family. When Billy’s children are in danger of repeating the twins’ tragic past, all of the characters will have to confront their own complicity and recognize the deep guilt that always tortured Billy even as he spun a beautiful dream of the future from the stories he loved—a classic American myth of redemption and second chances. Compulsively readable and empathetically written in Tucker’s artful prose, The Promised World is an epic tale of intimacy, betrayal, and lost innocence that will haunt readers long after they turn the final page. "Tucker is a riveting storyteller whose book brims with a cathartic intelligence about the dark side of families and how we survive." -- People "Engrossing and suspenseful, Tucker's remarkable fourth novel unveils the motives behind the curious behavior and superfluous lies of unusually close-knit fraternal twins...[a] satisfying, imminently readable novel." -- Publishers Weekly "A compulsively readable story...nothing is as it appears in this suspenseful, well-crafted look at truth and betrayal...a haunting, harrowing story." -- Library Journal "A masterfully told story that delves deep into the human psyche and examines the frailty of the human mind after a tragedy and the powerful, lifelong impact of childhood memories." -- Booklist "Tucker excels at telling unexpected stories. In The Promised World , she hands the reader a solid marriage that is torn by tragedy...when the story's underlying turns are revealed, and everything comes together, it makes terrific sense." -- The Denver Post "A compelling must-read novel that is part mystery, part family drama, and wholly satisfying." -- Deseret News " The Promised World is a book that will appeal both to readers of literary fiction and those who enjoy psychological suspense. It's one of the standout novels of the year." -- The Chicago Sun-Times Lisa Tucker is a bestselling author who lives in Pennsylvania with her family. Visit her website at LisaTucker.com. CHAPTER ONE W hile millions of people watched her brother die, Lila sat in her quiet office at the university, working on a paper about Herman Melville’s later years. Someone else might have found it ironic that, on that very afternoon, she’d been thinking about Melville’s son, who shot himself. Lila herself didn’t make the connection until much later, and by then, she was so lost she could only see it as an obvious sign that she should have known, that she’d failed Billy when he needed her most. Though Billy didn’t shoot himself, his death was considered a suicide. Patrick, Lila’s husband, had to explain it to her twice before she realized what he was saying. Her mind was working so slowly, but she finally understood that “suicide by police” happened enough that it had its own label. Billy had holed himself up inside a Center City Philadelphia hotel with a rifle, unloaded but aimed at an elementary school, so a SWAT team would have to do what he couldn’t or wouldn’t do to himself. As far as Lila knew, Billy had never owned a gun, but she hadn’t talked to her twin much in the last two years, since he’d moved with his family to central Pennsylvania. Still, everyone knew Lila was a twin, because she talked about her brother constantly. And many of those people were probably watching as Lila’s brother closed down an entire city block and sent parents and teachers and children into a terrified panic. As one of the fathers told the reporters, after the threat had been “nullified”: “Of course parents are afraid of violence these days. Seems like every week, there’s another nut job with an ax to grind.” Her beautiful, sensitive brother Billy—the most intelligent person she’d ever known, who taught her to climb trees and read her stories when she couldn’t sleep and told her flowers were the only proof we needed that God loved us—reduced to a nut job. She wanted to scream at this father, this stranger, but the only sound she could make was a muffled cry. Patrick hadn’t wanted Lila to watch the ele