Excerpt from My Flawless Life by Yvonne Woon, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

He stole the last olive from my plate, flicked it off the back of his finger, and caught it in his mouth—one of his more impressive party tricks. It was what he did when he wanted to make me laugh.

"I wanted that," I protested. Still, I couldn't help but smile.

He feigned innocence and eyed the last slice of manchego on my plate.

"Don't even think about it."

He nodded to my phone. "I think someone's calling you."

I turned to look, and before I realized it was a ruse, he grabbed the cheese and retreated to the stairs with a smirk.

"Hey!" I shouted.

"Shh," he whispered with a conspiratorial grin. "You'll wake your mother."

I threw a dried apricot at him, which he dodged, letting it hit the wall behind him.

"Teenagers and their phones," he said. "It's too easy."

"Go to bed," I said.

"You go to bed."

"You owe me an olive and a wedge of cheese."

"Veal it is."

People always asked me if I was angry at my father for what he'd done. They asked it expecting a nuanced and complicated answer, but the real one was simple. It was impossible to be mad at him.

There wouldn't be any veal, but I didn't care. That was the problem with charismatic people. Even when you knew they were lying, you couldn't help but want to believe.

Excerpted from My Flawless Life by Yvonne Woon. Copyright © 2023 by Yvonne Woon. Excerpted by permission of Katherine Tegan Books. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.