A PERFECT LIFE-A PERFECT LIE

Alison Young has a wonderful life. She has a high-octane career as the publisher of a popular national women's magazine; a beautiful, talented teenaged daughter named Destiny; a successful marriage to a loving and brilliant man; and a spacious townhouse in San Francisco's trendy Marina district, But all is not as it seems. As her daughter nears the volatile age of eighteen with dreams of a singing career, Alison's carefully organized existence begins to unravel at the seams. And she knows why. Her life is built on a lie. For eighteen years, Alison has kept a secret about herself from everyone she loves. A secret so devastating, it could destroy everything she's worked to achieve. Alison was the victim of a violent rape-and Destiny is the result of that attack. Not able to bring the man to trial or to obtain a legal abortion, Alison fled her hometown, moved to San Francisco and reinvented her past. Now Country Davis, rapist, convicted felon, and career criminal, is being released from Folsom Prison. Unrepentant for the horror he inflicted years earlier on the young Alison, he is heading for San Francisco to claim his rightful place beside the woman and child he calls family.