It's One of Us: A Novel of Suspense
"A smart, taut, mind-blowing thriller full of heartbreak and betrayal that moves along at breakneck speed. Readers will be obsessed!"
--Mary Kubica, New York Times bestselling author of Just The Nicest Couple
Everybody lies. Even the ones you think you know best of all . . .
Olivia Bender designs exquisite home interiors that satisfy the most demanding clients. But her own deepest desire can't be fulfilled by marble counters or the perfect rug. She desperately wants to be a mother. Fertility treatments and IVF keep failing. And just when she feels she's at her lowest point, the police deliver shocking news to Olivia and her husband, Park.
DNA results show that the prime suspect in a murder investigation is Park's son. Olivia is relieved, knowing this is a mistake. Despite their desire, the Benders don't have any children. Then comes the confession. Many years ago, Park donated sperm to a clinic. He has no idea how many times it was sold--or how many children he has sired.
As the murder investigation goes deeper, more terrible truths come to light. With every revelation, Olivia must face the unthinkable. The man she married has fathered a killer. But can she hold that against him when she keeps such dark secrets of her own?
This twisting, emotionally layered thriller explores the lies we tell to keep a marriage together--or break each other apart . . .
--Mary Kubica, New York Times bestselling author of Just The Nicest Couple
Everybody lies. Even the ones you think you know best of all . . .
Olivia Bender designs exquisite home interiors that satisfy the most demanding clients. But her own deepest desire can't be fulfilled by marble counters or the perfect rug. She desperately wants to be a mother. Fertility treatments and IVF keep failing. And just when she feels she's at her lowest point, the police deliver shocking news to Olivia and her husband, Park.
DNA results show that the prime suspect in a murder investigation is Park's son. Olivia is relieved, knowing this is a mistake. Despite their desire, the Benders don't have any children. Then comes the confession. Many years ago, Park donated sperm to a clinic. He has no idea how many times it was sold--or how many children he has sired.
As the murder investigation goes deeper, more terrible truths come to light. With every revelation, Olivia must face the unthinkable. The man she married has fathered a killer. But can she hold that against him when she keeps such dark secrets of her own?
This twisting, emotionally layered thriller explores the lies we tell to keep a marriage together--or break each other apart . . .
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Community Reviews
Olivia Bender is the Martha fucking Stewart of chaos. “She had constructed a beautiful world and she’s happy, they’re all happy, and suddenly, the cracks are showing along the edges, and she has no idea how to mend things.” Park Bender, “her husband is a good man. A kind man. A provider. He loves her. He will make an excellent father. She shouldn’t be suspicious of him. But now she is.”
“Infertility is a bitch, but fathering a murderer?” Olivia and Park discover the results of his college sperm donations: “Twenty-eight children. Nineteen boys and nine girls. Nineteen suspects. That they know of…one of them is a murderer, and his child with Olivia is dead. What hath he wrought?” “Is Bender a monster, disguised as a suburban wannabe dad?” How can she think he’s responsible for this? How can she think he isn’t? “She is totaled inside…He’s destroyed their life together, with one terrible lie.” But “Lying to yourself is the greatest lie of all, isn’t it?”
Darby Flynn discovers that Park is the father of her two IVF children. “How she has gotten herself into this situation, on a definitely-not-a-date in her backyard with a married guy who she’s never slept with but whose sperm twice created life inside her, one of the resulting children the reason the police have arrived, isn’t something she wants to examine closely.”
Olivia, Park, Darby–and the reader–are faced with the questions: “Does a parent love their child regardless of the terror they bring, the mistakes they make…if he admitted his darkness had become a real, tangible thing? That he had raped and strangled a woman…and possibly taken another…Thief. Rapist. Killer. Does she know her son at all?”
And then there are the texts among the siblings spawned by Park’s “dissemination:” “What’s happening hits her. A DNA match. Are you saying our dad killed someone? No, comes the answer. It’s one of us.” Horror, hilarity, and homicidal tendencies, J. T. Ellison’s It’s One of Us is her most absorbing and autobiographical thriller yet!
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