Mary Rose MacKinnon is a successfulauthor of YA fiction doing a tour of dutyas stay-at-home mom while her partner, Hilary, takes a turn focusing on her career. She triesvaliantly to balance the (mostly) solo parentingof two young children with the relentless needsof her aging parents. But amid the hilarities offull-on domesticity arises a sense of dread. Doother people notice the dents in the expensiverefrigerator? How long will it take Mary Roseto realize that the car alarm that has been goingoff all morning is hers, and how on earth did thesharpest pair of scissors in the house wind up inher toddler’s hands? As frustrations mount, sheexperiences a flare-up of forgotten symptomsof a childhood illness that compel her to rethinkher own upbringing, her own family history.Over the course of one outwardly ordinary week,Mary Rose’s world threatens to unravel, and thespecter of violence raises its head with dangerousimplications for her and her children. Adult Onsetexplores the pleasures and pressures of familybonds, powerful and yet so easily twisted andbroken. Ann-Marie MacDonald has crafted asearing, terrifying, yet ultimately uplifting story.