The Worst Thing I've Done: A Novel - Softcover

"The Worst Thing I've Done is a beautiful book, exploring the mysterious, ever-shifting boundaries of love and desire. Drawn with glimpses of startling beauty and a constant sense of discovery, the moments of these lives, ordinary and painful, luminous and haunting, are cast artfully, compellingly, into a remarkable, moving story of acceptance and courage and change." -- Kim Edwards, author of The Memory Keeper's Daughter

"Ursula Hegi, always a master of illuminating the human condition, has in this novel the clear tone and brilliance of water in a pond, and the urgency of storm-tossed coasts. Her characters must navigate their own lives and sorrows and passions, and readers will follow along with held breath and hope." -- Susan Straight, author of Highwire Moon

"Ursula Hegi's fearless excavation of passion takes us into gripping and dangerous territory. She is that most subtle and powerful of writers who can illuminate the darkest ambiguities of the human soul - showing us how even the truest love can be shaded with the destructive." -- Shira Nayman, author of Awake in the Dark

"Ursula Hegi always writes about the important moments between people, filtered through history, both personal and political. She is a writer of grace and immediacy." -- Meg Wolitzer, author of The Position

"[Heg] is as skilled at piecing together an intricate storytelling design as Annie is at creating beautiful, complex collages.... Hegi, who has written often of large families and difficult relationships, convincingly plumbs the psychological processes of grief." -- San Francisco Chronicle

"The Worst Thing I've Done is the work of a mature and masterful writer at her peak. The layering -- the collage -- of character and point of view, tragedy and healing, creativity and loss, loyalty and fidelity, love and jealousy, all combine with lyrical prose in a story that resonates long after its end." -- The Washington Post

Friends since earliest childhood, Annie, Jake, and Mason have a special bond. When Annie's parents die on the same night that she and Mason get married, the three friends decide to raise Annie's infant sister, Opal, together. But their bonds of intimacy, already entangled, become dangerously close, on the line. One fateful night, the three friends goad one another into crossing that line with shocking consequences.