You Could Be Home by Now

In her debut novel, Tracy Manaster approaches many social issues through the intelligent and entertaining story of two young professionals that begin working at a luxury retirement community to deal with their personal struggles.

An hour and a half outside Tucson, Arizona, The Commons is a luxury retirement community where no full-time resident under the age of fifty-five is permitted. Young professionals Seth and Alison Collier accept jobs there as a means of dealing (badly) with a recent loss.

When a struggling resident, underwater on her mortgage and unable to relocate due to the nation's ongoing housing crisis, is discovered to be raising her grandson in secret, the story--with the help of a well-meaning teenaged beauty blogger and a retiree with reasons of his own to seek the spotlight--goes viral.

You Could Be Home By Now explores the fallout for all involved, taking on the themes of grief and memory, aspiration and social class, self-deception, and the drive in all of us to find a place to belong.