In 2020, Amanda Eyre Ward introduced us to the dysfunctional Perkins family in THE JETSETTERS, which was a Reese’s Book Club pick. Now, six years and a pandemic later, Ward invites us to reunite with them in ARRIVALS AND DEPARTURES, which is set a full decade after their tumultuous cruise to the Mediterranean.

When last we saw these characters, matriarch Charlotte had just won the family a trip across the Atlantic, where she entered into a heady affair with a Greek sailor. Though passionate, it was short-lived. Now, Charlotte is firmly ensconced in her Savannah, Georgia, home, dodging calls from creditors and filling her storage spaces with wacky and offbeat seasonal decor. Living with her is gorgeous, desperate Lee, who is taking a break from being a Hollywood beauty to tend to her mental health following a serious breakdown. 

By day, Lee gossips and lounges with her mother, topping off their wine glasses as they pretend to be a normal mother-daughter pair. By night, she longs to break into Charlotte’s stash of pills to put an end to her pain once and for all. Though she has been medicated for her bipolar disorder, finding balance is tricky. Lee feels worthless and needy, nothing like the strong, stable sibling who once raised her brother and sister and guided them through their father’s death.

"Ward gracefully balances distance, misunderstandings and feelings of betrayal to craft a story that encompasses all the ways that a family can save one another, and how choosing to see --- really see --- them can be the difference between sinking and swimming."

Cord and Regan have taken to their own separate corners. Cord is dominating the investor sector and dodging wedding planning with his fiancé. Finally divorced from her abusive husband, Regan has taken herself and her teenage daughters to live in Greece. Equal parts jealous and mystified about Regan’s decision, her family believes that she is making art on dappled patios, her children are learning Greek, and they are indulging in the sunny coast. The truth, as readers of THE JETSETTERS already will intuit, is a little…ahem…off.

Still reeling from the dissolution of her marriage, Regan has become obsessed with the art of collage. François, her distinguished, artsy internet boyfriend, has begun training her in the art of cryptocurrency and investment. But he can never seem to find the time or ability to video call her. It’s obvious that François is a scammer, which couldn’t be clearer to her 16-year-old daughter, Flora. 

A studious young lady who has become involved with an amateur hacker group, Flora has begun to prepare a school report on “pig butchering,” an investment scam where fraudsters gain the trust of victims over time and then deceive them into investing in fake crypto assets. She has surmised that her mother is a big fat pig being financially butchered by François. But the stakes grow higher than ever when Flora and her 18-year-old sister, Isabelle, wake up one morning to discover that Regan is on her way to a “crafting seminar,” turned off the location services on her phone, and effectively disappeared.

Enter Lee. Though scarred by her dysfunctional, traumatic childhood, Lee cannot help but long for the control and power she once felt when she was needed. Now that she finally has taken time to care for her own mental health, her craving to be needed is worse than ever. When she learns that Regan’s teenage daughters have been essentially abandoned and are worried and scared for their mother, she leaps into action. 

Lee hops a plane for Greece and discovers a few concerning things. Regan definitely has been scammed and can be credibly labeled a “missing person.” Flora is beginning to exhibit the same symptoms that once crippled Lee --- hypervigilance, people pleasing, and a desire to be needed --- and requires a serious intervention before her symptoms turn into something far worse or more permanent. But stranded in a foreign country --- and without the meds she so desperately needs --- Lee doesn’t know where to begin, how to effectively help her family without simply performing help, and how to connect to the nieces who seem strangely aloof with her.

As Flora and Isabelle grapple with their own feelings about their mother’s disappearance --- equal parts fear and crushing disappointment --- Lee begins to reckon with her need to save everyone around her and what it means for her career as an actress. Meanwhile, Charlotte and Cord start to recognize that Regan and Lee are not the only ones who are emotionally drowning and that maybe their entire family could stand to cut back on the wine. 

With both mother and son forced to consider their romantic lives amid their familial upheaval, Amanda Eyre Ward sneaks in satisfyingly swoon-worthy endings for both that will draw them even closer to their flailing loved ones. Paired with a ripped-from-the-headlines fraud plotline, ARRIVALS AND DEPARTURES takes off like, well, a plane jetting off into the sunset. With all members of the Perkins family coming to terms with their own emotional scars, they learn one crucial truth: If you didn’t reach out, you would never know you weren’t alone in the water.

Mental illness, fraudsters, addiction and abuse. To say that this book packs an emotional punch would be putting it lightly. Yet, as those who enjoyed THE JETSETTERS will no doubt know, Ward possesses a keenly balanced approach that allows her complex family drama to exist among Greece’s sun-dappled streets and fruit-laden groves. Further balancing her weighty subject matter, she pens deeply relatable, funny and ironic characters who grow well beyond the limits of their issues. 

Through Lee’s poignant observations of Flora, Ward is able to demonstrate her growth as well, even as she laments the time she has lost to mental illness and her fears that she will never feel “normal” again. Though Regan is less immediately present on the page, her journey from abused teen to battered wife to woman willing to hope again is breathtaking, and it presents an urgent and necessary lesson for today’s scam-heavy world. Ward gracefully balances distance, misunderstandings and feelings of betrayal to craft a story that encompasses all the ways that a family can save one another, and how choosing to see --- really see --- them can be the difference between sinking and swimming. 

Though THE JETSETTERS will give readers a much better perspective on each member of the plucky Perkins clan, ARRIVALS AND DEPARTURES stands just as successfully on its own as a testament to the enduring yet complex bonds of family.