Hildy Good, successful realtor and descendant of a famous colonial witch, knows everyone and everything in her small New England town on Boston’s North Shore – except herself – in Ann Leary’s The Good House. Although Hildy is an alcoholic in “recovery” after her daughters staged an intervention and sent her to rehab, she only drinks alone now and stashes her wine in the trunk of an old car for the summer, and in the basement for the colder winters. Leary effectively uses Hildy’s denial to reveal other secrets in the small town that involve betrayal, snobbery, confusion, and the ongoing rivalry between the local townies and the newly rich who have discovered the town’s charm.

A quick enjoyable and engaging read, with a little drama when a dead body is found in the ocean, and a love story that rekindles in middle age – The Good House manages to include a moral with its slow spin of a New England yarn.