The Mandatory Weekend at Maplewood

About this book:

Maplewood isn't a neighborhood. It's a trap with curb appeal.

When Clara inherits her cousin's pristine colonial in the gated community of Maplewood, she thinks she's escaped the city's chaos for a fresh start. Instead, she finds a town where hedges are regulated to the millimeter, curtains have mandated opacity ratings, and the Block Captain times your commute with a stopwatch. The welcome basket on her porch is warm, artisanal, and laced with phenobarbital. The note hidden beneath the cellophane—scrawled in trembling handwriting—warns her not to eat, to check the cellar drain, and that Arthur didn't die of a stroke. He found the registry. Now someone has a key to her front door, and the mandatory weekend retreat is just beginning.

Beneath the manicured lawns and synchronized smiles lies a system that doesn't allow resignations—only corrections. With a USB drive of evidence in her pocket, a vintage key to a forbidden archive, and the gatehouse monitoring every frequency, Clara has until Sunday to expose what Maplewood buries beneath its Four Pillars of Living. But the community takes care of its own. And it's already marked her for the next retreat.