I Died And Became Your Stranger

When the Hendersons' biological daughter Gemma returns from a strict correction boarding school, she is a shadow of herself—eating from a battered metal bowl on the kitchen floor, sleeping on the cold tiles by the dog door, calling her sister Paula and her sister's fiancé Luke her brother-in-law. Paula, who spent years molding herself into the perfect daughter and bride, watches her family's tenderness turn toward Gemma, and sees in Luke's eyes a look she has begged for her whole life and never received.

As wedding invitations are printed and the engagement party is set for the yacht, Paula quietly contacts Elysium Transitions. She chooses drowning—a fall from the thirty-meter deck into the icy ocean—and reviews a file for a grieving family with a ninety-eight percent compatibility match, planning to step into their lives as their new daughter.

But at home, a twisted ankle, a slap from her father, and her brother Brody's cold command that she ice Gemma's foot leave Paula staring at a fallen ice pack, wondering whether the real Henderson daughter ever needed to be perfect to be loved.