Verity

Verity Plot Summary

Introduction

The rain fell in heavy sheets against the windows as I turned the final page, my heart still racing from the shocking revelation. For days, this novel had kept me awake at night, questioning every character's motives, every twist of truth and lie. Like many readers before me, I found myself utterly consumed by the psychological labyrinth created on these pages. There's something deeply unsettling about a story that forces us to question our own perception of truth - especially when we realize how easily manipulated our understanding can be. We all navigate a world where truth and deception intertwine in complex ways. In relationships, careers, and even within ourselves, we constantly sift through layers of authenticity and fabrication. This psychological journey explores the darkest corners of human nature - the lies we tell others, the lies we tell ourselves, and the devastating consequences that follow when truth finally emerges from shadow. Through masterful storytelling that blurs the line between villain and victim, the author challenges us to examine our own perceptions, questioning not just what we believe, but why we choose to believe it. As you journey through these pages, you'll find yourself confronting uncomfortable questions about loyalty, betrayal, and the ultimate price of uncovering truth when perhaps deception was kinder.

Chapter 1: The Novelist's Commission: Stepping into Verity Crawford's World

Lowen Ashleigh was having possibly the worst day of her life when she witnessed a man being fatally struck by a truck, his blood spattering across her white blouse moments before her important meeting. Shaken and blood-stained, she retreated to a coffee shop bathroom to clean up, where she encountered a stranger - a handsome, green-eyed man named Jeremy Crawford who offered her his shirt. Their brief connection in that unlikely sanctuary felt oddly significant, though neither could have predicted how their lives would soon become inextricably entangled. Later, Lowen discovered that this chance meeting was anything but random. At Pantem Press, she learned that Jeremy Crawford was the husband of bestselling author Verity Crawford, a literary sensation who could no longer complete her famous series following a tragic accident. The publishing house was offering Lowen a life-changing sum - $75,000 per book - to ghostwrite the remaining three novels in Verity's successful series. For Lowen, a struggling author facing eviction, the timing couldn't have been more crucial; for Jeremy, finding someone whose writing style his wife had once admired seemed like providence. The commission required Lowen to immerse herself in Verity's previous work, necessitating a visit to the Crawford home in Vermont. What began as a simple research trip soon became something far more complex as Lowen found herself living in the sprawling house with Jeremy, their young son Crew, and Verity herself - now bedridden, unresponsive, and entirely dependent on care following her accident. The atmosphere was heavy with grief; Jeremy's devastation over losing both his twin daughters in separate tragedies within months of each other was palpable. In Verity's office, surrounded by the trappings of the famous author's successful career, Lowen began sifting through notes and outlines. Then she discovered something that wasn't meant to be found - a manuscript hidden among boxes of research materials. Not a novel, but an autobiography Verity had titled "So Be It." From the first paragraph, Lowen was transfixed by its shocking confessions and the darkness that poured from its pages. Should she read further? Should she tell Jeremy what she'd found? The manuscript felt like a ticking bomb, and Lowen now held the detonator. The ethical dilemma was immediate and overwhelming. Reading Verity's private manuscript felt like an invasion, yet the glimpse Lowen had already caught suggested there might be truths within those pages that Jeremy deserved to know. As her attraction to Jeremy grew stronger, the manuscript became both a forbidden temptation and a potential weapon. We often believe we want truth at all costs, but sometimes truth is the very thing that destroys us - and Lowen found herself positioned as both truth-seeker and potential destroyer in the Crawford family's already fractured world.

Chapter 2: The Haunting Manuscript: Darkness Behind Motherhood

The manuscript Lowen discovered wasn't simply a collection of notes - it was Verity Crawford's unfiltered autobiography, revealing thoughts so disturbing they defied comprehension. In these pages, Verity described her obsessive love for Jeremy, how she'd manipulated their first meeting, and her dismay when she became pregnant with twins. Most horrifying were her confessions about motherhood: "I knew I was pregnant because my breasts looked better than they had ever looked," Verity had written, going on to describe her pregnancy not with maternal joy but with disgust at her changing body and resentment toward the babies who would steal Jeremy's attention. As Lowen continued reading in secret night after night, the revelations grew increasingly disturbing. Verity wrote of unplugging the baby monitors while Jeremy was at work, leaving her infant twins to cry for hours while she slept. She described her distinct preference for one twin, Chastin, while harboring indifference or even resentment toward the other, Harper. Most shocking was Verity's chilling account of attempting to harm baby Harper by shoving her fingers down the infant's throat until she began to choke - stopping only when Jeremy unexpectedly entered the room. "I tried to stop Harper before she acted," Verity had written, suggesting she believed one twin would eventually harm the other. Throughout the days, Lowen's growing closeness with Jeremy and young Crew created a surreal double life. Downstairs, she witnessed a grieving father doing his best to create normalcy for his son after unimaginable loss; upstairs at night, she read the twisted words of his wife that painted those losses in a sinister light. When Jeremy spoke of Chastin's death from an allergic reaction at a sleepover and Harper's drowning in the lake behind their home, Lowen listened with new horror, the manuscript's dark implications coloring every word. One night, Lowen found a chapter describing Harper's drowning in excruciating detail - not as the accident Jeremy believed it to be, but as Verity's deliberate act. "I gripped the edge of the canoe and leaned all my weight to the right," Verity had written, describing how she saved Crew but left Harper to drown, entangled in an underwater fishing net. The manuscript detailed her performance of grief afterward, how she'd screamed Harper's name and pretended to search for her, all while knowing exactly what she'd done. The deeper Lowen descended into Verity's private thoughts, the more she questioned everything around her. Strange occurrences in the house - a television mysteriously muted, a figure glimpsed at the top of the stairs - made her wonder: was Verity truly as incapacitated as she appeared? The contrast between the seemingly helpless woman in the hospital bed upstairs and the calculating mind revealed in the manuscript created a psychological vertigo that left Lowen constantly questioning her own perceptions. The boundary between truth and deception had never felt more permeable, and Lowen found herself trapped in the dangerous space between them. Through this haunting manuscript, we confront one of our most sacred cultural narratives - that maternal love is instinctive and universal. Verity's words tear away this comforting assumption, forcing us to consider the possibility of darkness hiding behind motherhood's façade. The psychological horror isn't in supernatural elements but in the suggestion that someone could move through life wearing a perfect mask while harboring monstrous thoughts and impulses beneath. It makes us question how well we truly know those closest to us, and whether complete honesty between people is even possible - or desirable.

Chapter 3: Blurred Lines: Attraction in the House of Grief

The Crawford home became increasingly complex territory as Lowen's stay extended from days into weeks. Financial necessity kept her there - her apartment lost to eviction, her advance payment still processing - but something else was taking root as well. Despite the shadows of tragedy that hung over the household, an undeniable attraction was growing between her and Jeremy. It began with small moments: his thoughtfulness in installing a lock on her bedroom door after discovering her sleepwalking, late-night conversations over Chinese takeout, the way his eyes lingered on hers when he asked about her writing. On Lowen's birthday, Jeremy baked her a cake, bringing a slice with a candle to her as the clock struck midnight. Their conversation flowed easily, both of them seated on the couch with a rare lightness between them. When he noticed icing on her lip and reached to brush it away, the touch lingered. The kiss that followed felt inevitable - passionate, desperate, and complicated by everything around them. It was Lowen who first saw the figure at the top of the stairs, standing silently watching them. "Verity," she gasped, pulling away from Jeremy in shock. But when they rushed upstairs, they found Verity exactly as she always was - motionless in bed, apparently unaware of her surroundings. The incident created a schism in Lowen's mind. Had she imagined Verity standing there out of guilt? Or was something more sinister happening? She began setting traps - placing objects in certain positions, installing a baby monitor in Verity's room - convinced that the supposedly catatonic woman was deceiving them all. Meanwhile, her relationship with Jeremy intensified, charged with the electricity of forbidden attraction and shared secrets. "I want you," he confessed one night, and the admission broke whatever restraint remained between them. Their physical relationship developed against the backdrop of mounting tension in the house. Crew made cryptic comments about his mother speaking to him when they were alone. Objects moved inexplicably. And Lowen discovered the final chapters of Verity's manuscript, where she described her husband's growing suspicions after Harper's death. "I watched your suspicion come to a head," Verity had written, detailing how Jeremy had questioned her about telling Crew to hold his breath before the canoe tipped. The manuscript ended ominously: "If that's the case... so be it. I'll just drive my car into a tree." The layers of deception and perception became increasingly difficult to separate. Was Jeremy an innocent victim of his wife's machinations, or did he know more than he revealed? Was Verity truly incapacitated, or masterfully acting? Even Lowen's own motivations became murky - was she protecting Jeremy by withholding the manuscript's contents, or protecting her chance at happiness with him? When she finally showed him the manuscript, his reaction was devastation followed by rage. Later that night, they discovered Verity's bedroom door locked from the inside - an impossibility for someone supposedly unable to move. Human relationships rarely fit into neat moral categories, and the entanglement between Lowen, Jeremy and Verity illustrates this uncomfortable truth. In times of grief and trauma, boundaries blur and ethical lines become permeable. Lowen's attraction to Jeremy wasn't simply physical desire, but emerged from shared trauma and mutual understanding. Their connection formed in the spaces between truth and lies, grief and healing, past and possibility. The psychological complexity lies in recognizing how easily we justify crossing lines when our emotions are engaged, and how completely we can convince ourselves that we're acting with integrity even as we step further into morally ambiguous territory.

Chapter 4: The Walking Truth: Verity's Secret Life

The morning after finding Verity's door locked from inside, Lowen awoke to discover herself in Verity's bed rather than her own. Terrified and disoriented, she fled the room only to run directly into Jeremy in the hallway. Her sleepwalking had returned - a condition that had plagued her since childhood. As they sat together on her bed, Lowen finally revealed her deepest fear: "I've woken up outside before, I've turned on stoves and ovens in my sleep. I even broke my hand in my sleep and didn't feel it until I woke up the next morning." Jeremy's response wasn't fear or rejection but compassion, as he installed an external lock on her door to keep her safe at night. Driven by mounting suspicion, Lowen set up a baby monitor in Verity's room while Jeremy took Crew to the emergency room after a minor accident. That night, watching the grainy video feed, Lowen witnessed what she'd feared all along - Verity moving. Not just small movements, but deliberately crawling across the floor to retrieve something hidden beneath a floorboard. The woman who supposedly couldn't move, speak, or respond was functioning perfectly when she thought no one was watching. Confronted with proof of this deception, Lowen rushed upstairs but found Verity back in bed, perfectly still, when she entered the room. The psychological warfare intensified as Lowen tried to force a reaction from Verity, whispering provocations into her ear: "I hope you die with a throat full of your own vomit, the same way you attempted to kill your infant daughter." When even this produced no response, Lowen leaned closer and said, "Jeremy is going to fuck me in your bed tonight." Immediately, the smell of urine filled the air - a physical response Verity couldn't control, revealing she had heard and understood everything. Later, when Crew casually mentioned, "Mommy said I shouldn't talk to you if you ask me questions about her," Lowen's worst fears were confirmed. The final confrontation came unexpectedly. After making love in Lowen's room, Jeremy and Lowen found themselves locked inside - the door latched from the outside. When Jeremy broke through the window to escape, they discovered both Crew and Verity apparently asleep in their beds. But something had shifted irreparably. That night, Jeremy discovered the entire manuscript Lowen had been reading in fragments, and his reaction was one of pure devastation followed by cold rage. When he returned to Lowen's room, his demeanor had changed completely. "She killed our daughter," he said, his voice hollow with grief and fury. What followed was the darkest moment of all - Jeremy confronting his wife, forcing her to reveal her deception. When Verity finally opened her eyes and spoke, admitting "I had to, Jeremy," he lost control, his hands moving to her throat. Lowen's intervention prevented murder in that moment, but she made a chilling suggestion instead: "Make her vomit. Cover her nose and mouth until she stops breathing. It'll look like she aspirated in her sleep." Together, they carried out this plan, staging Verity's death as a tragic accident - the culmination of all the deceptions that had entangled their lives. This shocking sequence reveals how truth itself can become weaponized. What began as Lowen's search for understanding evolved into a deadly game where information was power and reality was whatever the strongest narrative dictated. The revelation of Verity's deception didn't bring clarity but deeper moral ambiguity. Even as readers, we become complicit, understanding the actions while being horrified by them. The "walking truth" - Verity's secret life - shows how deeply humans can commit to deception when survival is at stake, and how catastrophic the consequences when these deceptions finally unravel. The boundary between victim and perpetrator blurs until we're no longer certain who deserves our sympathy and who deserves our condemnation.

Chapter 5: Confrontation and Consequence: When Fiction Meets Reality

Seven months after Verity's death, Lowen and Jeremy had created a new life together. They moved to a beach house in North Carolina, far from the memories of Vermont, with Crew thriving in their care and Lowen pregnant with their daughter. The advance payments for completing Verity's series had stabilized their finances, and they were slowly building a life untainted by the darkness of the past. On a final visit to the old house to clear out remaining possessions before its sale, Lowen felt relief that the nightmare was behind them. "Let's get out of here and never come back," Jeremy said as they prepared to leave, and Lowen couldn't have agreed more. But the past wasn't finished with them. While upstairs alone, Lowen discovered something that shattered her perception of everything that had happened - a letter hidden beneath a loose floorboard in Verity's bedroom. It began "Dear Jeremy" and contained revelations that made her physically ill as she read. In this letter, Verity claimed that the autobiography Lowen had discovered was fiction - an writing exercise called "antagonistic journaling" where she explored the darkest possible version of herself as a way to improve her craft as a suspense novelist. "It was never meant for anyone to read and believe," Verity had written. "It was an exercise." The letter went on to claim that Harper's drowning had indeed been an accident, that Jeremy had found and read the manuscript shortly afterward, and that in his grief and rage, he had tried to kill Verity by staging her car accident. According to the letter, Verity had survived but pretended to be mentally incapacitated out of fear that Jeremy would try again or have her arrested for Harper's death if he knew she had recovered. She had been planning to escape with Crew and had written this letter as explanation in case Jeremy ever discovered the truth. Reeling from these revelations, Lowen faced an impossible choice. If Verity's letter was true, she and Jeremy had murdered an innocent woman who was merely protecting herself from a husband who had already tried to kill her once. But if the letter was Verity's final manipulation - a contingency plan to sow doubt if her deception was ever discovered - then showing it to Jeremy would destroy him with undeserved guilt. With no way to determine which version was true, Lowen made her decision. She tore the letter into tiny pieces, flushed some down the toilet, and even swallowed fragments that contained Jeremy's name. When Jeremy found her in the bathroom, Lowen smiled and said she was alright. As they drove away from the house for the final time, she made her commitment: "He will never know what I know. I'll make certain of that. I will take this secret to my grave with me so Jeremy doesn't have to." She rationalized that even if Jeremy had caused Verity's accident, he had believed he was protecting his children from a murderer. And even if Verity was innocent of Harper's death, her deception afterward was its own form of cruelty. "No matter which way I look at it," Lowen concluded, "it's clear that Verity was a master at manipulating the truth. The only question that remains is: Which truth was she manipulating?" The confrontation between fiction and reality creates the ultimate psychological quandary. When narratives conflict and each contains elements of potential truth, how do we determine what to believe? Lowen's choice - to protect Jeremy from knowledge that could destroy him - reflects how we sometimes choose comforting deceptions over devastating truths. The ambiguous ending forces us to question whether absolute truth is even attainable in human relationships, or if we all exist in a haze of subjective perspectives, each crafting the version of reality we can live with. Perhaps the most unsettling aspect is recognizing that we all engage in versions of this - choosing which truths to embrace and which to reject based not on evidence but on what allows us to maintain our sense of self and safety in an uncertain world.

Chapter 6: The Final Letter: Questioning Perception and Truth

The discovery of Verity's hidden letter introduced a destabilizing possibility - that everything Lowen had believed might have been based on an elaborate fiction. "I hope it's you who finds this letter," Verity had written to Jeremy, explaining that her autobiography was merely a writing exercise in antagonistic journaling: "It was a way to tap into the dark grief that was eating at me and eliminating it with every stroke of the keyboard." If true, this meant the manuscript that had painted Verity as a monster was actually a therapeutic fiction never meant to be read by others, a creative exploration of the darkest possible version of herself as a technique to improve her craft as a suspense novelist. The letter told a completely different version of the pivotal events in the Crawford family history. According to Verity, Harper's drowning had been a genuine accident - she had indeed told Crew to hold his breath as the canoe was tipping over, but only to help him, not as part of a murderous plan. She claimed Jeremy had discovered her manuscript days after Harper's death and, believing the fictional account to be true, had attempted to murder her by staging her car accident. The letter described how Verity had woken from her coma to find herself in an impossible situation - unable to convince Jeremy the manuscript was fiction, and fearing he would either try to kill her again or have her arrested for Harper's death if she showed signs of recovery. Her apparent brain damage had begun as a desperate survival strategy. As Lowen frantically destroyed the letter, she grappled with the impossibility of determining which version was true. Had she and Jeremy murdered an innocent woman who was merely protecting herself from a husband who had already tried to kill her once? Or was the letter Verity's final, most sophisticated manipulation - a contingency plan designed to torture whoever found it with uncertainty and guilt? The evidence supported both possibilities. Verity's manuscript contained details only the real Verity could have known, but her explanation of antagonistic journaling as a writer's technique was equally plausible. The bedroom incidents could have been Verity moving around when she thought no one was watching, or they could have been products of Lowen's stressed and exhausted mind. In the end, Lowen chose to protect Jeremy from this knowledge. "I have no idea what to believe, so why put him through more anguish?" she reasoned. "Even if Jeremy really was the reason for her wreck, I can't blame him. He believed Verity maliciously murdered his child." She decided their new life together - with Crew thriving and their baby on the way - was worth preserving at any cost. As they drove away from the house for the final time, Lowen committed to carrying this burden alone: "He will never know what I know. I'll make certain of that. I will take this secret to my grave with me so Jeremy doesn't have to." The final letter forces us to confront the ultimate psychological uncertainty - that our most deeply held convictions about reality might be based on fundamental misperceptions. Every character believed they were acting justifiably based on their understanding of events, yet these understandings were fatally incomplete. The chilling implication is that we may all be making consequential decisions based on stories we've constructed rather than objective reality. Perhaps the most disturbing insight is that in matters of human perception and motivation, there may be no accessible "objective truth" at all - only competing narratives, each shaped by the fears, desires, and self-protective instincts of their creators. In this uncertainty lies the true psychological horror: not that monsters exist, but that we can never be entirely certain who they are - or if we ourselves might be monsters in someone else's story.

Summary

The journey through truth and deception reveals how easily our perceptions can be manipulated - by others and by ourselves. Through the entwined stories of Lowen, Jeremy, and Verity, we witness how narratives shape reality and how easily the lines blur between victim and perpetrator, truth-teller and deceiver. We see how grief can distort perception, how love can justify moral compromise, and how our deepest fears can materialize in the stories we tell ourselves. Most unsettlingly, we confront the possibility that absolute truth may be unattainable in human relationships, leaving us to navigate a world where multiple contradictory realities can coexist, each valid from its own perspective. The most profound lesson lies in recognizing our own vulnerability to deception - not just from others but from within. We each construct narratives that protect our self-image and justify our choices, selecting which "truths" to embrace and which to reject based on what allows us to maintain our sense of safety and identity. Perhaps the wisest approach is to hold our certainties lightly, recognizing that our perceptions are inevitably filtered through our experiences, fears, and desires. Rather than seeking absolute truth - which may be an illusion - we might instead cultivate greater awareness of how our minds construct meaning, and compassion for others whose realities differ from our own. In the end, the question isn't simply what is true, but what truths we choose to live by, and whether those choices lead us toward greater understanding or deeper deception.

About Author

Loading...

Colleen Hoover

International and #1 New York Times bestselling author of romance, YA, thriller, women's fiction and paranormal romance. I don't like to be confined to one genre. If you put me in a box, I'll claw my way out. My social media username is @colleenhoover pretty much everywhere except my email, which is [email protected] of www.thebookwormbox.com charity and Book Bonanza.

Read more