She Treads Softly: Such Sheltered Lives

Tuesday, December 16, 2025

Such Sheltered Lives

Such Sheltered Lives by Alyssa Sheinmel
1/20/26; 288 pages
Atria/Emily Bestler Books

Such Sheltered Lives by Alyssa Sheinmel is a recommended novel of psychological suspense set at a celebrity rehab center in New York's Hamptons.

Rush’s Recovery is an exclusive rehab center located on Storm Island that only accepts three clients at a time who stay in luxurious cottages equipped with an individual care manager and staff. The three clients visiting are: Lord Edward of Essex, a British aristocrat who is fighting a pain killer addiction after an accident; Amelia Blue Harris, the daughter of a 90s rock legend who has an eating disorder; and Florence Bloom, a bad-girl rocker who needs to remove herself from a tabloid scandal.

The expectation is that the guests will keep to themselves and concentrate of their recovery. Amelia Blue and Lord Edward happened to meet when arriving and later begin sneaking out at night to walk around the grounds together. Ten years earlier, Amelia Blue's mother, rocker Georgia Blue, was found dead after checking out the day before and she is there to discretely delve into what happened. There is also some flirtation between Florence and one of her a staff members.

This is an even-paced, atmospheric, unsettled, and secretive suspense novel with chapters alternating between the point-of-view of the three clients: Edward, Amelia Blue, and Florence. Everyone has a secret and the tension rises as the plot unfolds. While there are twists, much of the plot is predictable. It is entertaining, but actually felt slow moving for a shorter novel and I was expecting more suspense.

There is character development along the way, but ultimately none of the characters are relatable or even really likable. They really are all reticent to actually work on helping themselves in their therapy sessions, although their individual care managers are also all irritating. The secrets will keep you reading for answers.

Such Sheltered Lives is recommended for readers who like suspense novels with secrets and some suspense. Thanks to Atria Books for providing me with an advance reader's copy via Edelweiss. My review is voluntary and expresses my honest opinion.

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John Updike's six rules for reviewing:

1. Try to understand what the author wished to do, and do not blame him for not achieving what he did not attempt.

2. Give him enough direct quotation--at least one extended passage--of the book's prose so the review's reader can form his own impression, can get his own taste.

3. Confirm your description of the book with quotation from the book, if only phrase-long, rather than proceeding by fuzzy precis.

4. Go easy on plot summary, and do not give away the ending.

5. If the book is judged deficient, cite a successful example along the same lines, from the author's oeuvre or elsewhere. Try to understand the failure. Sure it's his and not yours?

To these concrete five might be added a vaguer sixth, having to do with maintaining a chemical purity in the reaction between product and appraiser.....Review the book, not the reputation.... Better to praise and share than blame and ban. The communion between reviewer and his public is based upon the presumption of certain possible joys in reading, and all our discriminations should curve toward that end.