Escaping Pretense - Miller, Deborah Jean

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Résumé :
What if you could disappear forever? Pretense Abdicator is whip-smart, socially awkward and angry. When passed over for a well-deserved promotion at the prestigious financial firm of Crawford Spectrum, she hatches a get-even plan. Embezzle money from her wealthiest clients, assume a new identity, and flee the country. With over $2 million stashed in an offshore bank account under an alias, Pretense is certain she has pulled off the perfect crime. Only one more money transfer and she is home free. But on September 11, 2001, she is summoned to her manager's office on the eighty-ninth floor of the World Trade Center. As her boss and the FBI are confronting her with ironclad evidence of embezzlement, a passenger plane hits the North Tower and Pretense takes that opportunity to make a run for it. Presumed dead, Pretense flees to a tropical island, leaving behind an abusive mother and years of desolate loneliness. While anticipating the start of a dream life, she instead discovers the true meaning of friendship and love. As her desire for material wealth fades, her quest to untangle her deceptive past spirals out of control. From the author of The Essence of Shade, this compelling story will keep the reader cheering for the protagonist until the very end....

Sommaire:
She walked out of the towers on 9/11-and into a life she was never meant to live. From the author of The Essence of Shade comes Deborah Jean Miller's Escaping Pretense-a gripping tale of deception, survival, and unexpected redemption. At its center is a woman who has perfected the art of manipulation-unlovable, calculating, and dangerously adept at bending others to her will. When her schemes of embezzlement threaten to unravel, fate intervenes in the most unimaginable way: she walks out of the burning towers on 9/11 and vanishes into the chaos. With the world believing she perished that day, she seizes the chance to become someone new. Far from New York, in a foreign land, she struggles to reconcile her past sins with the fragile life she has built. As layers of her hardened exterior begin to crack, compassion-once foreign to her nature-quietly takes root, forcing her to face questions she has long buried: Can a heart trained in deception learn to love? And is true forgiveness ever possible for a soul steeped in betrayal? Suspenseful, thought-provoking, and ultimately moving, Escaping Pretense is a story of reinvention born from tragedy-a novel that will captivate readers who love women's fiction layered with intrigue, moral complexity, and the haunting search for grace. From the author of The Essence of Shade, this compelling story will keep the reader cheering for the protagonist until the very end....