Not What It Seems
STATUS: Complete Manuscript
Currently Querying Literary Agents
Sometimes the people who change our lives are the ones we never should have met.
Two women, each carrying unimaginable grief, find comfort in an unexpected friendship.
One woman lost her husband.
One woman witnessed his death.
Together, they help each other heal.
As their lives become increasingly intertwined, the past begins to cast unexpected shadows over the present, forcing both women to question everything they thought they knew about love, loss, and forgiveness.
Some friendships heal us.
Others change everything we thought we knew.
When Richard Cipriani is killed while stopping to help a stranded motorist on a rainy night, two lives are forever changed.
His wife, Kacey, is left to raise their daughters while navigating a future she never imagined. Elizabeth can't escape the memory of witnessing Richard's final moments and struggles with the weight of a tragedy she can't forget.
Brought together by grief, the two women slowly form an unlikely friendship. What begins as shared understanding grows into trust, laughter, and the kind of bond neither believed they needed.
But the past has a way of demanding to be heard. And when long-buried truths finally surface, both women must decide whether forgiveness is possible when everything they believed is called into question.
The Story
Meet the Characters
Kacey Cipriani
Kacey has always believed the best way through life's hardest moments is simply to keep moving forward. After the sudden loss of her husband, she's left raising two daughters while trying to rebuild a life she never imagined living alone.
When Elizabeth unexpectedly enters her world, Kacey finds comfort in a friendship she never saw coming. It's a reminder that sometimes the people who help us heal arrive when we need them most.
Elizabeth Thompson
Elizabeth never expected one rainy night to change the course of her life. After witnessing an unimaginable tragedy, she struggles to move forward, carrying memories she can't escape and questions she can't answer.
Meeting Kacey wasn't part of the life she imagined, but their unexpected friendship becomes a source of healing for them both. The closer Elizabeth grows to Kacey and her family, the harder it becomes to reconcile the past with the life she's slowly building.
Jason
After a difficult breakup, Jason moves closer to his sister, Kacey, hoping to spend more time with the family he loves. Their close bond had always been a source of comfort, especially after growing up feeling like he could never quite live up to his father's expectations.
He never imagined that only months later, tragedy would strike. Instead of needing them, they would need him.
As Kacey struggles to rebuild her life, Jason becomes her constant. His bond with his nieces grows even stronger, and whenever his sister needs him, he shows up, without hesitation and without excuses. Family has always been Jason's greatest priority, and when the people he loves are hurting, there's nowhere else he'd rather be.
Inspiration For This Novel
Late one rainy night, I was driving on the Long Island Expressway. Traffic was crawling, visibility was terrible, and I remember coming upon a disabled car on the shoulder.
A woman stood holding an umbrella while a man changed her tire. They were so close to traffic that I remember thinking, He's going to get himself killed out here.
As I slowly passed them, I noticed another car parked in front. It looked like this man had pulled over to help.
Then my imagination did what it always does.
I started asking questions.
Who were they?
Didn't he realize how dangerous it was to stop?
What if the next car didn't see him in time?
Did he have a wife? Children waiting for him at home?
Was helping a stranger worth risking everything?
By the time I got home, the story had already begun writing itself in my head. Over the years, those questions slowly turned into characters, relationships, secrets, and eventually Not What It Seems.
It's still funny to me that a few seconds on the side of a rainy highway stayed with me for more than two decades before finally becoming an entire novel.
One of My Favorite Moments
People often assume my favorite scene would be one of the novel's biggest revelations.
It isn't.
It's the night Elizabeth surprises Kacey by taking her out to celebrate her promotion.
By this point in the story, Kacey and Elizabeth have become genuine friends. For the first time since Richard's death, Kacey lets herself laugh without guilt, dance without overthinking, and simply enjoy an evening with someone who has quietly become one of the most important people in her life.
When Kacey has a little too much to drink, Elizabeth does the only thing she can think of. She calls Jason.
What happens next is why I love this scene so much.
Jason doesn't arrive frustrated or inconvenienced. He simply takes over, caring for his sister with the quiet patience that has always defined him. But without realizing it, he begins caring for Elizabeth too. He notices she's safe, but he comes back to the bar because he promised he would. And somewhere between looking after Kacey and walking Elizabeth to her car, a completely different story quietly begins.
Looking back, I realize this chapter isn't really about celebrating a promotion.
It's about three people, each carrying their own pain, finding comfort in one another without even realizing it.
By the end of the night, no one knows that their lives have changed.
But they have.
What I Love About This Story
What I love most about Not What It Seems is how unexpected the most meaningful relationships in our lives can be.
This story is about an unlikely friendship between two women brought together by tragedy, and the family that slowly forms around them. Watching Kacey, Elizabeth, Jason, and the girls become part of one another's lives was my favorite part of writing this novel.
It's the quiet moments that stay with me, celebrating a promotion, sharing pizza around the kitchen table, checking in on one another after a difficult day, or simply showing up when someone needs you. Those ordinary moments became the heart of the story because they made these characters feel like a real family long before they realized it themselves.
The friendships feel so genuine that, by the time I reached the final chapters, I found myself wishing the truth would never catch up with them.
